2025
oil on canvas
150 x 140 cm
Estimate: €30,000 – 35,000
Record: €47,700
Monika Falkus’s practice explores emotional themes, focusing on love, female identity, intimacy, and sexuality. She believes that moods possess their own hues. In the composition Third Parties, she presents an intricate arrangement of nude figures devoid of facial details. Bathed in red, the bodies of the three individuals remain locked in an embrace. Their limbs intertwine, losing individual traits and forming a unique body language that expresses the intimate story of their relationship. As the artist states:
What was your sex like last night? I bet their body was better than mine. Were you in her and in me on the same day? Can that even be divided by three?
You follow me through nights of jealous obsession, fuelling guilt in me despite my pure intentions. While you fall asleep next to someone else, I turn down a one-night stand because I’m thinking of you. Every third party you consume ends up in our bed. You don’t touch my back, my thighs, my calves, my feet—only the necessary parts.
After it all, I soak up traces of your shared skin, scrub off a day’s worth of scent, rinse your names from my body. Forgetting who I am, I agree to your one-time departures. Smiling at the door, alone in our sheets.
So many bodies, so many walking thoughts, hidden desires, and the urgent need for change. Bodies that would risk their life, their home, their job, their family—themselves—for a fleeting orgasm. A shiver that spreads like life and then takes it away.
— “Only through love can I keep you,” he whispers.
— “Only through sex, you won’t,” she moans.
What is it we want here and now? What do we expect from our connection—without the presence of randomly encountered third parties?
by Monika Falkus
Monika Falkus (b. 1993) is among the most sought-after artists of the young generation. She works with oil painting, as well as creating installations and video art. Drawing on tradition, folklore, and her own memories, Falkus creates art that is personal and evocative. Her works have been shown at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Galerii Raster, Galeria Szara, BWA Katowice, and LuginsLand of Art in Malta.
