Tobin Bennison

Many local artists look to the water for inspiration, but few have gone to the lengths — or indeed, depths — Monique Richter has in search of creative guidance.

Born and raised on the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale, Monique moved to Melbourne five years ago, and now, at the young age of 26, she’s already spent more time on the water than many salts twice her age. A seasoned traveler and lifelong water worshipper, Monique prefers plunging headfirst into the ocean where others seem content to dip their toes into a mere fraction of its vastness.

Armed with an innate love of art and an enviable skill with a wide range of watersports — surfing, wakeboarding, wakeskating, freediving, and spearfishing — Monique has traveled extensively to feed an insatiable passion for her chosen muse. She’s traveled as a professional wakeboarder for competitions all over the world, to places like Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines, Europe, the Caribbean, and South and Central America, and recently worked as a first mate aboard a sport fishing boat that through the British Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and Cuba.

Wherever Monique goes, she’s always in search of new inspirations. “It is important for me to go deeply into life and not be content to skim merrily along on its surface,” she explains. “Traveling has expanded my horizons beyond the material aspects of life, such as clothing, fancy cars, and money. I love getting lost in different parts of the world.”

These voyages have also informed every facet of her artwork. Whether acrylic or oil paintings, welded steel sculptures, or delicate blown glass pieces, Monique’s all of creations bear the unmistakable impress of the sea. Time spent in the British Virgin Islands inspired her with its sublime scenery and brilliantly-hued tropical reefs. “The unbelievable sunsets and sunrises over looking the peaks of each island was breathtaking,” she recalls.

But one of her favorite trips was to Naga, an island in the Philippines where she competed in the women’s wakeboarding world championship and placed 7th out of 68 in the world. “I went on a tour to swim with whale sharks on a canoe-type boat with bamboo outriggers and an old crusty engine, one day,” Monique tells me. “The local guy steering the boat looked down in the water and yelled in his language to jump in. As I went underwater I saw an 80-foot whale shark gracefully swimming along the surface. I swam with it for about fifteen minutes and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life.”

As a child, Monique was always interested crafts and started making her first pieces at the age of three. “My mom was always creative and buying my sister and I paints and other crafts to make at a very young age.” Taking her first art class in took my first art class in 11th grade, Monique learned the learned the basics of art and went on to attend WheatonArts in Millville, New Jersey where she first learned how to blow glass and took her certifications for welding. Using these skills, she’s made trophies for Bahamian and South Florida fishing tournaments and has completed large sculptures both in steel and in glass, which can be found in many public parks throughout the southern part of the state. The glass pieces she fashions today are generally freeform sea creatures, ones inspired by the stillness of the reefs she loves so much. Freediving and spearfishing lure her down in search of that stillness, but the pieces born out of those moments speak volumes about Monique’s artistic vision.

As for her paintings, Monique credits the variety of classes she took while at Wheaton. “I got the chance to apprentice under many amazing artists from around the country and learned a new technique on each painting I did. For me its all about layers of paint.” Amazingly, Monique doesn’t paint her subjects from photographs. Working from a dream/travel journal she adds to each day, she takes those sketches and transfers them to canvas. “It’s all out of my mind and the way I want to see them,” she admits.

She counts the elastic perception of Salvador Dali and M.C. Escher as strong influences, but she’s just as fond of famed aquatic artist Wyland. Whatever the reference point, each of Monique’s pieces is different and the time it takes to complete them varies greatly. “I’ve done a mural on a three-story building in four days from start to finish, but some canvas pieces take me a couple of weeks to complete.” Her personal favorite? “I did this painting with an underwater shot of a surfer getting barreled with his hand trailing in the wave. The colors were different shades of blues with the surfer’s shadow running through them.” Monique has just made a shirt emblazoned with this image for Indialantic’s famed Spectrum Surf Shop, which she owns with her fiancé, Benjamin. Apart from being one of a major influence on the east coast surf scene for over 30 years, Spectrum also serves as studio for Monique’s work.

Currently, Monique is in the process of designing her own line of screen-printed bikinis bearing her pieces, called Richter Bikinis, and is also developing her own clothing line. As far as the future goes, she hopes to organize more solo shows of her work while expanding both the gallery and surf shop. Now that she’s back home after a spate of recent overseas travel, Monique has also set to work on a new series of paintings. “I feel that my feet are planted on the ground and now I can be productive,” she says. “I live my life day by day with no regrets. If I ever fall down, I’ll get up and try again.”

You can see Monique Richter’s paintings at Spectrum Surf Shop, located at 130 Fifth Avenue in Indialantic. Call them at (321) 768-7873, or visit them online at www.spectrumsurfshop.com. Monique also has work on display at Pure Art in the Cayman Islands. She welcomes commissioned pieces — everything from indoor/outdoor murals and landscapes to portraits on canvas.

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5. The 46th Annual Space Coast Art Festival

Tags: Art, Painting • Issue 1, Volume 6, March 2010

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