Monica Nouwens

Photographer

Nouwens is an artist and community activist and fellow if the Rijksakademie Amsterdam and attended California Institute of the Arts. Nouwens captures the faces and scenes of those Los Angelinos who contribute to the cultural mosaic of the city for more then twenty years. In Los Angeles, the city becomes electric when it gets dark. For photographer Monica Nouwens, it's these hours after sunset when Los Angeles is most vibrant and alive in its diversity and spirit. Nouwens' body of work Gary Let Her Have Her Own Life is comprised of her experiences after dark on the streets of South East Los Angeles and is, in many ways, a love letter to the City of Angels. Noted for intimate and provocative portraits amidst continuously synthetic landscapes of decadence and decay. Focus of her work is on social economic justice and communities that arise outside the given economic structure of brutal capitalism. Nouwens has exhibited widely, including solo shows at Photography Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Annenberg Space for Photography as well as off-beat and artist run spaces. Her most recent work- produced in collaboration with the community she created in her decade long activism (Food Not Bombs, a.o.) - was recent work was shown at Quotidian Gallery - a jill moniz project- and Rainbow in Spanish Gallery, Los Angeles in 2020 and published in BuzzFeed News