Born in a mountainous region called Centovalli ("one hundred valleys") in Switzerland's italian-speaking canton Ticino, Mona owes her passion for botany and the natural form to her childhood's natural surroundings. Daughter of Swiss theater and opera set designer Peter Bissegger, and granddaughter of an artist of uncannily similar draftsmanship as herself, Mona briefly studied literature at the University of Zurich before relocating to San Francisco in 1992, where she attended the Academy of Art, graduating with honors in 1996, BFA in illustration.

Upon graduation, she started freelancing in illustration, enjoying book and poster illustration in particular. In 1998, the creation of her first public artwork, the the 6000 square-foot Duboce Bikeway mural, marked the unexpected beginning of a now decade-long adventure in public mural-making.

Much of Mona's public art deals with social history and utopian possibility, and chronicles the life of its surroundings. Her mural's storytelling details emerge not only through research, but often through her direct, ongoing contact with the artwork's hosting communities. Mona's work also makes room for contemplative expanses of color and textures, as well as lyrical, declaratively large-scale tributes to delicate and humble bits of nature.

The messages of Mona's murals have seeped into her other media as well, often leading her to creative collaborations with progressive groups and individuals.





experience, cv, artwork range:

Mural experience:
Dedicated to mural-making since 1998. Created large scale public murals up to 6000 square feet in size, earning numerous official commendations. Mona is also available for commissions by companies and individuals.

Illustration experience:
Freelancing in illustration since 1996, working mostly in watercolor or printmaking techniques. Clients include Bloomberg, Heyday Books, Highlights For Children, Weldon Owen, Leapfrog, Scholastic, San Francisco Bay Guardian, State of California Coastal Conservancy, Tyndale, Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, Sun Microsystems, CMP Media, the AARP, Tbd advertisement, and others.

Teaching experience:
Faculty at the Academy of Art University from 2000 to 2004, teaching junior and senior level illustration.

Other experience:
Small three dimensional works in contribution to some projects by Mona's father, Swiss artist and set designer Peter Bissegger. Among which, sculpting, molding and casting scale replicas of neoclassical statuary, and other details for scale models that were part of Harald Szeemann exhibits in Vienna, Zurich, and elsewhere. She has also followed and documented Peter Bissegger's MERZbau reconstruction, at the exhibits in Curitiba Brazil, Houston TX, and Berkeley, CA; and assisted her brother Mario Bissegger in the in the setup and take-down thereof.

Languages: Italian, English, Swiss-German, German, French, some Spanish.

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