Megan Merchant
MY THERAPIST SAID TO MAKE FRIENDS WITH YOUR MONSTERS
8x10 Mixed Media on Bristol Board IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
“MEANWHILE, IN MY HEAD, I’M UNDERGOING OPEN HEART SURGERY” —ANNE SEXTON
Mixed Media, 9x11 wood panel. IMAGE DESCRIPTION:
Artist statement: As an artist, I have a tendency to start conversations with a vulnerable “here’s the wound” kind of approach. One that doesn’t waste time in the shallows. I have collected, along the way, experience, lines, moments, and memories that store themselves in my body with ache and insistence. But my body is only a temporary container, housing them until they are understood and formed enough to take shape as either an idea, an image, a line, a paint stroke, or a knife cut. Each piece is a way of shaping how I have translated this lived experience—the said and unsaid, touch, fear, joy, grief, so that it can communicate and hopefully connect.
Lately, I have been working with cutting into or sanding down collaged layers in a way that I never know what will be exposed, shine through, or formed. In this way, the image reveals itself and becomes a conversation with both embodied story and something beautifully unexpected.
back TO CONTENTS
prev
next