Mona Oates is a German abstract surrealist painter currently located in Manhattan, NY. Oates received her BFA from the University of Chester, UK, and received a MSc in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in 2017. Major influences on her work has been travelling and living abroad from the age of 17. Drawing inspiration from different natural environments, technology, architecture and the persistent human need to seek an identity,
Oates creates unidentifiable universes that seem to be at a moment in time of destruction and renewal.

Due to her extensive travelling Oates always grappled with the notion of identity and who one truly is. Through her oil paintings she creates environments beyond the natural world, yet the richly rendered imagery seems familiar and in a state of flux. Through such representation she intends to evoke thoughts of the endlessly transforming self as well as one’s environment.

Mona Oates was born in northwest Germany and lived in Singapore, Estonia, and England before settling in her present home in New York City. She has exhibited in England, Hungary, Italy, Germany, and the United States.

View Mona's Works