Megan Greene

American, born 1976

© 2011 Megan Greene. Photograph by Tom Loonan

135, 2011

Mixed media on paper
12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Pending Acquisition Funds, 2012

The meticulous aesthetic of Megan Greene is reminiscent of Victorian botany drawings, an appropriate reference given her strong interest in images of flora and fauna. The two works recently acquired by the Gallery, 135 and 155, hail from Greene’s most recent body of work, a recontextualization of traditional bird prints by the French-American ornithologist and painter John James Audubon (1785–1851). These works were created with colored pencils, graphite, and collaged materials, including pages recycled from a discarded 1965 edition of Audubon’s The Birds of America. Greene’s intricate hybridizations reconceive the original plates. It is easy to get lost in the details, where organic elements become otherworldly and playfulness overshadows purpose.  

MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born in Buffalo, New York, in 1976, Megan Greene graduated with honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1998, receiving the Emil Jacques Gold Medal of Fine Art and the Mabel Mountain Award for Achievement in Painting. She earned a MFA degree from Rutgers University, where she was awarded the Dean Bettenbender Memorial Performance Award, in 2002. In addition, Greene was awarded a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship to live in New Zealand. Recent exhibitions of her work have taken place at Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center in Buffalo, Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects in Toronto, and the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art. 135 and 155 join Greene’s For Anteater and Los Norkyules, both 2007, in the Gallery’s Collection.