Though “not really a painter” artist, Jonathan Monk has always painted, stating that making art,”…is thinking and painting is a mode of that thinking.” Expanding on his notorious series, None of the Buildings on Sunset Strip, Monk began making oil paintings of the sunset. After the long process of creating one of these paintings in 2023, Monk was going to throw it away. Instead he decided to keep it.

Upon the invitation to create an edition with Alternate Projects in early 2024, Jonathan proposed making the edition around the almost discarded painting, which would be cut into 12 equal-sized squares and then divided for the edition. Sunset (discarded, rescued, cut, divided & distributed) is an edition of 12 unique box sets, each with one of the painting’s cut squares adhered to the box top, and inside housing 11 digital prints, each an image of the other 11 cut pieces of the painting. Once almost discarded and then cut up, Sunset is brought back together - but not.