- City
- Vaughan
- Booth
- Nathan Phillips Square
Booth 216
Moni Vems
My practice focuses on creating tactile, three dimensional landscape paintings inspired by
real-world locations.
Each work is built as a physical terrain rather than a flat image, using
layered mixed media to form elevations, textures, and contours that can be experienced
through both sight and touch.
I am interested in how people relate to place, not just visually, but physically and
emotionally. By translating landscapes into sculptural surfaces, I invite viewers to move
around the work, explore it from different angles, and engage with it more slowly and
deliberately. Touch is not treated as an afterthought or accommodation, but as an essential
part of how the work communicates. This approach challenges the long-standing
convention of “look but don’t touch” in visual art, and instead proposes a more open and
inclusive way of experiencing a landscape.
Accessibility is a core consideration in my work. By prioritizing form, texture, and spatial
clarity, the pieces create opportunities for people with different visual abilities to engage
meaningfully, while also offering sighted viewers a deeper, more immersive experience. The
goal is not to replace visual language, but to expand it.
Each piece is developed through a time-intensive, hands-on process that involves research
into the chosen location, careful scaling, and the gradual construction of layered forms.
Natural and reclaimed materials are often incorporated to strengthen the connection
between the artwork and the places that inspire it. Through this process, I aim to create
works that function as both landscapes and experiences, inviting viewers to feel a sense of
connection to place through physical presence as much as visual recognition.
Painting
-
"Cold Enough to Remember" (Inspired by Svínafellsjökull Glacier)
- Year
- 2025
- Dimensions
- 60.96 × 60.96 cm
