For 15 years, Monika Behrens has been developing her practice in the field of still life. Recently, she has been interested in the history of this artistic genre, and more specifically the Dutch still life of the 17th century. Her current work draws a dialogue between the history of traditional still lifes and contemporary ways of painting. She has researched and produced paintings based on different subgenres of tradition, namely Floral, Hunting Trophy and Pronk, focusing on the similarities within the compositions of each subgenre and how she can use this knowledge to produce paintings mixing digital and analog technologies.
Monika Behrens presented 11 solo exhibitions, including Analogue Art in a Digital World at RMIT Gallery, The Thinking Image at Martin Browne Contemporary, Reimagining Seventeenth-Century Dutch Still Nature: A Transformation into Contemporary Painting at UNSW Galleries, Hunting Trophy at Verge, Double Dutch at Breenspace, Standing Still at Gallerysmith, Salad Days at the National Art School Gallery, and 1 at Rimbun Dahan Gallery in Kuala Lumper. She has received two grants from the Australia Council for the Arts (2006 and 2010) and has been selected for several local and international residencies including Artspace Sydney, Rimbun Malaysia, the Cité internationale des arts in Paris and PAF, St Erme.