|
The
Artwork of Meg Renwick
“There is a civil war going on between imagination and
reality.” This was said recently by painter Meg Renwick, of
North Carolina, now relocated to Austin. “I like to put in my
pictures things I see on my daily walks, but I like to put them
next to impossible things, too. I like the idea of painting
something that could be seen as boring next to something really
fantastic. It’s almost as if I go by my whims. There is
staginess to the newer paintings, I have noticed. I think I
single out objects to use as props in the paintings, and if you
make a believable space, you can use that as a set and put
whatever drama, characters, and objects inside it.”
A teacher
around town, at ACC and UT informal classes, as well as Austin
Museum of Art, and Dougherty Arts Center, Meg earned a Masters
degree from Boston University, under John Walker, and a BFA from
Kansas City Art Institute. Her aesthetic has been shaped by
fellowships in the New York Studio Program as well as
Yale/Norfolk. She has painted several Large scale Murals and
taught art to children.
Her art has
progressed throughout the attainment of cumulative and various
techniques, each one complimenting the other, often used in
combination within a single painting. For instance: painting
from a quickly made sketch, painting directly from life,
painting from photographs, as well as painting entirely from her
imagination. The variety and ease which she slips from one mode
to another underscores a sense of freedom which she is after as
well as a refreshing lack of ideological baggage about the
“right way” to paint. Her sole aim in learning new techniques
has always been more freedom and ease of expression, and has
produced her distinctive narrative/poetic type of stripped-down
realism. This approach is strongly akin to the psychological
subject matter and non-definitive styles explored by the
lesserly dogmatic, early Surrealists she admires. This
cubbyhole however does not suit her well.
“Pretty much whatever I am interested in at the time, is what I
paint. And that changes a lot. But I would rather you get the
meaning from what you see, than what I say.” |
