Megan McNaught

Megan McNaught has a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design and MFA from UMass Amherst. Exhibiting extensively over the last 20 years she is now represented by Hera Gallery, RI and formerly by NKG Boston. Her work is driven by her fascination with the experience of human visual perception and the way the brain organizes visual information from the two dimensional surface. She works with themes of limitation, repetition and variation.

Artist Statement

My work is deliberate. I use restrictions and rules to dictate a theme, usually serial in nature. I am fascinated by the complexity that exists in simple themes. I like to examine how many possibilities and permutations that can occur from using only two or three elements put together. The structure of my work is usually geometric and I activate that structure with color. My work is repetitive as well as deliberate. It is also accumulative in nature.  These three elements with addition of color interaction offer a rich source of complexity for me to work with. My work becomes a meditative process and a slowing down in the consideration of an image. I am interested in this contrast to the almost constant barrage of images encountered in everyday life.

Collaborating for me has been eye opening, practice opening, process opening and an inspiring creative springboard to new and exciting work. Starting an image and handing it off to be finished, or being given an image to finish is intimidating, daunting and requires brave actions. This lack of comfort inserts an unpredictable dynamic that always surprises, even after having done it over again and again with the same collaborator. If the term “two heads are better than one” ever made sense to me, it does more so now, it is with a recognition of the validity of expanding a creative process beyond oneself. I like to consider the idea of “collective intelligence”. But, in art and esthetic concerns, the individual command of my work has always ruled. I focus on my individual work but it has a different sort of shocks and surprises. It’s the value added element of collaborating that makes the sum much more than the parts.