Commissioned for the 2017 Palm Springs Modernism Week, ’Mid-Century Crisis’ began as a sub-series of the larger deMonica conceptual character oeuvre. The playful project, however, got inadvertently imbued by turbulence, both, inherently personal to the artist, and largely environmental. As a result, the many faces of deMonica’s mid-life crisis confront us with angst, heartbreak, disappointment, loss and disillusion of personal life experience. The evoked character emotions reverberate beyond the middle-age condition of a single female, expanding and addressing issues impeding lives of gender and ethnic minorities at large. Today, these subjects ring truer and louder amid tensions of political upheavals, embodying the sense of helplessness and aggravation of many U.S. citizens. And yet, the sardonic glory of the works belies a residue of whimsy, allowing glimpses of humor in the exaggerated, manic spectacle that at times elicits glimpses of hope along with a desire and a will to move forward.