Meghan Brady - October 2020
“Surf Point was more than I had allowed myself to hope for. The absolute beauty and otherness of its location and story was not clear to me until I relaxed into my residency. And I think that's what I got most from it - a kind of permission to let myself be and do what I needed to do. In other words, to relax! To relax back into my mind and spirit. I felt no exterior pressure to perform, achieve, reach and that was an unexpected gift. I had time to paint and work but also to write, read, think, and wander around in the woods and daydream.”
Meghan Brady, a painter, is based in Midcoast Maine. Through painting, printmaking, and drawing-installations, Brady explores the possibilities of a wide-ranging practice. Recent shows include ‘Said + Done’ at Mrs. Gallery in NYC, ‘Reversible Roles’ at University of Maine Museum of Art, ‘Take Five’ at SUNY Buffalo Anderson Gallery, NADA House Governors Island NYC and ‘Second Hand’ at Space Gallery in Portland, Maine. She’s recently been in residence at MacDowell and Tiger Strikes Asteroid NYC. Brady is a graduate of Smith College and Boston University.
“Recently I’ve been mulling over questions of how to incorporate human form into an otherwise abstract image. Can I use compositions and arrangements of these forms that are based on outsider sources (early New England gravestone patterns, Shaker Gift Drawings, traditional women’s handiwork and textiles)? And in spite of my assumptions against it, can I create a body of work that holds the balance between abstraction and representation? In the last two years, I've been making wall-scaled paper paintings as a way to work through a backlog of painting ideas. From here, I’ve opened up my process by making cut and collaged canvas pieces on the floor. They are painted, rearranged, and glued and then painted again. There is an ongoing sense of discovery and freedom in this method. But I am ready to bring the project back to oil paintings on stretched canvas.”
More of her work can be found at MeghanBrady.com.