Meagan Hale
Artist Statement
I think the key takeaway from my work is that I “don’t make anything to mean anything”.
Given the choice, I would much rather have people look at my work, say “wow that looks cool,”
and move on without thinking any more about it. Sometimes I get the impression that in order
for art to be considered art, there has to be some philosophy or something behind it and I get
frustrated at that. And then I get even more frustrated when I realize that being anti-philosophy
is also a philosophy. I just want people to appreciate my stuff without analyzing it at all.
Since beginning senior studio I’ve shifted directions a lot. I’ve always been
drawing-focused, but I used to do mostly digital cartoon people. Now I’m drawing semi-realistic
animals in pen. I’ve also started exploring collage, which lets me try working at different scales.
Normally I don’t make large-scale drawings because they take a long time to complete and I get
bored of making them. But with collage each part is like a mini-artwork, and then all I have to do
is put them together. I feel freer when making collage, too. If I’m making a single drawing, I feel
more pressure to make it perfect, but a collage has a lot of different drawings within it, and I
don’t care if one of those drawings ends up being terrible. In my exhibition installation, nobody’s
going to scrutinize every rooster on the floor, so it doesn’t matter if I hate some of them.
I also feel like my relationship to the preciousness of my work is weird. On the one hand
I do feel attached to my drawings-- I have a set of binders called The Artchives where I keep
everything I’ve made since I was 12. I would be very upset if anything ever happened to them.
On the other hand, I’m having fun making work out of cheap, non-archival materials like old
math notes, cardboard, ballpoint pens, and literal garbage. I also find it very fun to destroy
things. In the past I’ve burned things, cut things up, and thrown paint at things. I intended for the
roosters in the exhibition installation to be walked on by visitors. Maybe acting like art isn’t
precious is what makes it become precious to me.
Chicken Pierogi, dimensions variable, ballpoint pen, sharpie, old math notes, photocopy paper, house paint, candy wrappers, 2021.
Installation shots
