Meagan Segal

Meagan Segal is a fine artist and designer from Los Angeles, CA, who received her BFA in painting from Pratt Institute in 2008. Her work has been exhibited around the country in numerous group shows, including La Luz de Jesus’s famous Laluzapalooza and Gallery 30 South’s coaster show, as well as at indie artist markets such as the Renegade Craft Fair. She has found inspiration for her work from her doctor father and the Victorian Language of Flowers.

Statement:

I am ceaselessly searching for merit and meaning within my own existence, plying my craft to construct a semblance of order amid seeming chaos. To be in possession of a body and a mind is at times unbearable, and I seek out manifestations of sentiment and memorialization to quell the unsettling emotions. I grapple with the truths of physicality and mortality, holding a morbid curiosity of fleshly animalness and a distrustful estrangement from my own body. 

In contradiction of our licentious tendencies and grotesque actualities, I pine for decoration and embellishment, intricate details and precious touches. I have a nostalgia for a time I never knew: the age of the Victorians, who embraced the macabre and the mysterious, who sought beauty in the darkest and most mundane of places. 

It is in the intersection of these contrasting fascinations that I dwell, attempting to make sense of life and death through the study of medical and mourning practices, symbolism, and existential philosophy. Gravestone forms and memento mori symbols, floriography and domestic craft– these inspire my artistic practice. As my hands deftly produce paintings and sculptures, assemblages and embroideries, the labor-intensive processes provide time and space for me to languor in my ruminations. With each tiny stroke, etch, and stitch, I make my indelible marks, hoping they live on beyond my bodily decay.