Megan Greene - Artist Statement, 2009
The source material I use for these white-on-black drawings is varied, from tiaras to meatballs to teeth. The best way for me to speak about the themes of decadence, mutation and belief in my work is to sort through this junk drawer of parts.
Jewelry, ruffles, hair, ribbons, lace, etc. speak to my interest in ornamentation. Layers of coiffed costume give a kind of arch, pageantic femininity to my work, Baroque in its excess and Victorian in its sublimated control. With it comes a figurative aspect; is this invented structure something to be worn—a headdress, mask or hairdo—and how? Related is my interest in tribal adornment including ceremonial pieces made from animal teeth and hair. Add to it my attraction to English mourning jewelry (differently made of hair) and vanitas painting, and what emerges is a kind of complicated beauty—by turns elegant, bestial and dark.
Armor, medals—military and otherwise—epaulets, festoons, amulets, etc. all concern themes in my work of ritual and systems of belief. (See Pig Ear One and Los Norkuyles). Such objects are intrinsically earnest and reverential. This solemn, honorific quality interests me, as does the question of what happens when such totems are mixed together and in excess, their potencies heightened or leeched and made idolatrous. My intention in these drawings (some more than others) is to create an aura of belief and ceremony that feels both specific and culturally unclear. Meanwhile, this charge of spiritual purpose relates to my use of machine parts (see The Sorriest Sword). In the spirit of Picabia’s absurd machines, I refer to mechanical function in my work, suggesting a believable but unknown use.
Feet, fur, hooves, horns, ears, tentacles, antennae and parts taken from jellyfish and similarly membranous creatures, as well as cuts of plants and flowers, lend a biological specimen-like quality to my work. With these elements, I attempt to make structures that appear carnal and animate, like that of a hermaphroditic or asexual species—prehistoric, futuristic, mythical, or newly discovered. My approach is like that of a naturalist, de-clawing and embellishing.
Last are some of my many reasons for working white on black. To my mind, working on an intrinsically black surface is a way of upending some of the demands and baggage of the picture plane and of mark making, in that black has a readymade presence and fullness, without the same expectation of a white expanse. Further, I am compelled by qualities innate to a black surface: that it is theatrical and presentational (as in the “black box” or a piece of velvet upon which a brooch is laid or a butterfly pinned), that it renders the structures upon it ghostly and luminescent, that it feels solitary, silent and indeterminate—like deep space, deep sea or somewhere in between.