Monika Kus-Picco

Medicine in Colors

Grenzen entstehen im Kopf

Monika Kus-Picco (b. Vienna, 1973; lives and works in Vienna and Rio de Janeiro) has devised an artistic practice in painting and photography that charts the outer bounds and perceptions of consciousness. For her large-format pictures — she calls them color drug paintings — the artist works with products of the pharmaceutical industry to create vivid visual experiences of these substances. She needs no pencil or brush to develop her motifs: each work begins with an experimental arrangement that involves a primed support medium. The key factor shaping Kus-Picco’s color drug paintings is the choice of medications, from which she extracts the ingredients for her colors. Antiseptic, Neuron, Overdose, or, more familiarly, Toothache and Family Pack are among the titles she has given to the works in this series. The powerful allure with which they draw in the beholder is enhanced by the olfactory effect of the paint-medicine blends. The brushwork and handling of the paint in the large formats is reminiscent of cosmic processes and biochemical explosions. A malaria medication or antidepressants — Kus-Picco recycles and repurposes expired substances into dreamlike abstractions that render homage to a humanism of mutual care. 

The monograph Medicine in Colors sheds light on the biographical inspiration sustaining Kus-Picco’s creative practice. In addition to the color drug painting series, the book presents a comprehensive survey of her output of the past 15 years. With essays by Robert Fleck, Hermann Nitsch, Herbert Brandl, Heidrun Rosenberg, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, and Andrea Jungmann and conversations with the artist by Irene Gludowacz and Robert Fleck.