Portia Munson delves deeply into the connection between the objects we collect and the stories they tell about us. A self-proclaimed feminist environmental artist, she creates fantastical installations from recycled materials, drawing viewers in with a nostalgic allure while immersing them in a vivid and chaotic visual experience.
This journey began in her teenage years when, like many young girls, Munson found herself gravitating toward the color pink.
“It was so clear that pink was very passive and strongly associated with femininity,” Munson recalls. “I asked myself why I was being linked to this color and these objects.” This question sparked her critical examination of how color is a subconscious cultural tool.
In the 1980s, Munson studied painting at Cooper Union and drew inspiration from artists like Hans Haacke, Barbara Kruger, and Martha Rosler, who combined art with social critique.
As her practice evolved, she gravitated toward found objects, transforming them into large-scale, often monochromatic compositions that questioned how consumerism reinforces societal norms. Sourcing materials from yard sales and flea markets, she noticed patterns in what people cherish, collect, and discard.
This observation gave rise to her Pink Project series in the mid-1990s, which featured pink items—beauty products, children’s toys, and kitchen utensils—arranged on luxurious fabrics like silk and satin. Subsequent works like Reflecting Pool (2013) and Flood (2018) used blue plastics to highlight the environmental consequences of mass consumerism.
In her second appearance in Art Basel Miami Beach’s Meridians sector, Munson presents a more concentrated yet equally impactful approach. Instead of sprawling immersive installations, she opts for a freestanding display of objects and themes, physically and metaphorically intertwined.
Her Bound Angel series emerged from her earlier work on Flood installations in Portland. During her search for materials, she discovered numerous discarded porcelain angel figurines repurposed into household lamps and decorations.
“To me, they had a suffocating, instructional quality,” she explains, referencing the ideals of chastity and morality these objects project. Their youthful, Caucasian, “pretty” features seemed to symbolize a narrow and oppressive definition of beauty and virtue.
Munson was particularly intrigued by the electrical cords coiling around the lamps’ bases, which inspired her to replicate this constriction using string and rope in a series of tabletop installations.
One of the centerpiece works in this series is Bound Angel (2021), presented by New York’s P·P·O·W gallery.
The piece features a table draped with a wedding gown-inspired tablecloth, topped by the bound torso of a mannequin surrounded by smaller assemblages symbolizing the female psyche’s entanglement with external influences.
“She’s filled with all this information and these constraints we accumulate unconsciously,” Munson says of the work. The objects, intentionally tied together, symbolize outdated and harmful perceptions of femininity, most notably the Madonna-Whore complex.
The installation implicates the viewer, inviting them to reflect on the subconscious codes they continue to receive and reinforce through the objects they hold dear.