Maeghan Landa's work challenges her viewers to engage with the painting to learn more about the person or people who live within that environment. She urges you to: Ask questions. Be curious. Give it thought -- does it remind you of you?! Scroll down for more of her paintings...
Artist, Maeghan Landa, whose work was most recently seen in the ENVIRONMENTS show at Fine Line Creative Arts Center, St. Charles, IL, has an interesting perspective on domesticity. This “art psychologist” revels in probing beneath the public persona of family life into the stark realities that belie the fable.
Viewers soon realize there’s more to Maeghan’s work than quickly meets the eye. She challenges viewers to dig deeper and ask questions about what they ‘re observing. And, she revels in illustrating ironic juxtaposition --“the way nuclear families in America are idealized to be” vs. the interior conflict that actually exists within it.
“I’ve always been interested in the psychology of family dynamics,” she observes. “The moms and dads with their children and the socio-economic influences on them.” When producing portraits, she surrounds the subject with revealing interiors to expose more details about the individual's life.
Her artist’s statement continues in that vein: “What does it mean to be the idealized nuclear family in America, and is that an attainable reality? I reference my family home in my work to actively question what is unwatched and unguarded in order to remove the veil of public roles like mother, father, and child to allow for a deeper truthfulness to emerge. I aim to capture everyday moments of the suburban family homes where we operate within and contradict existing social conventions. I use painting to interpret and distort these moments through warped perspective and time which mirror the dissonance of what is expected compared to what is actually there. My intention is to guide the viewer into questioning their own interpersonal dynamics and ultimately discover what their expectations around those relationships reveal about themselves.”
MAEGHAN’S WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT:
“Engage with the act of looking and the joy of art making. Make, make, make. If you make one good piece out of 100 that’s excellent. Don’t be afraid to make a lot of bad paintings in your lifetime. There’s nothing wrong with that. Make bad art and then you’ll get to the good stuff – mistakes are just a learning curve. Painting is not relaxing – it can be like a boxing match where you come out black & blue, but it’s worth it.”
DINING ROOM
GAME ROOM + FAMILY
LIVING ROOM
GAME ROOM
LANAI
The artist, Maeghan Landa