Monica Tap is an artist whose many activities involve exploring questions of time and representation in painting. Her practice opens up a space between landscape and abstraction, and navigates the terrain between painting and other media. Her canvases, which are conceptual and systematic investigations into the codes of pictorial illusionism and perception, have been exhibited in Canada, New York and London, England.
Tap has taught in the School of Fine Art and Music at the University of Guelph since 1999. While her primary focus is the painting department, she has also directed the 2D Foundations program and, for the past three years, has coordinated the MFA program. She sees teaching and art-making as complementary practices, each informing, expanding and challenging the other.