Megan's Art Space

  The Royal Drawing School show opened recently, and I’ve been going to the show for the last 3 years ever since Printmaker Samuel Heath, currently finishing an MA in Printmaking took me. I wasn’t aware it existed, and I think it is so important something like it exists because it means creatives and artists can solely focus on expanding that part of their practice and visual code. The intensity of it as a course is perhaps daunting but exciting to see in the final show at the end of the year. I have followed the work of some of these creatives before they embarked with the Drawing Year, so it was really exciting to see how their work had developed.   This year’s cohort is one I’ve followed the practice of online as well as seeing in the flesh and its always exciting to see that distance from digital to physical space. When you see a tiny piece of work in a box on the likes of Instagram it can alter the experience. As someone who has graduated from a BA...

It's been well over a year since my last blog post. I've been writing still just not in a consistent space. I've got a few pieces over at On the Beat Mag  and on the Pressing Matters Journal . It's funny how I'm starting off by trying to show how I have been keeping busy, as a way of defining my offline presence on this space. This is something I have always been very good at maintaining, an image of being busy and content in what I am doing. I think with this keeping busy, comes a sense of running from oneself in order to keep my head above the water. In recent weeks I have been writing a lot more than I have been making art. I have had projects on the go, but not pushing myself fully into them which I find frustrating because I'm not being fully present in the moment of what I am doing. In this I perhaps lose the essence of why I am doing it. When you are in a state of transition there are a few ways you can process? deal? tackle? it. I am someone who has al...

A couple of weeks ago I went up to Edinburgh and when I was there I met up with Alison Soye, who is an illustrator I discovered through Instagram. We met up in Lovecrumbs (the best cake n coffee shop) and chatted for a bit before heading to Princes Street Gardens to draw the buildings and surrounding scenery. We spoke about how we present ourselves online as artists this is something that we have to use more and more to get our work out there. Alison is currently working on an exciting project illustrating a children's book. We drew some of the buildings when we met and spoke about how amazing it is that people can both be drawing something in front of them at the same time but interpret it so differently. Alison's sense of line is more structured than my chaotic approach but we both have a similar continuous way of capturing what is in front of us, Alison's way of drawing is very instinctive. I've put together a small interview with Alison for you to lea...

Something exciting landed through my letter box a couple of weeks ago. A new exciting magazine has entered the art world. Pressing Matters, a new magazine focussing on process and passion behind printmaking. While printmaking has been a major component of my practice for the last 2 and a half years, there has been a limited community with how I can share my work and meet other printmakers. While the studios at University have been a great place to meet people and share ideas with work and learning new skills, the internet//Instagram has been where I've found a lot of other printmaker folk. I thought I would share my thoughts on the magazine and some of my favourites. Stick around for all things etching, screen printing and more. The magazine is buzzing with the notion of what printmaking is all about, I think the creator have been very thoughtful in the terms of who this magazine is targeted at. While the likes of me (someone who gets a little bit excited by the smell of whit...

The weather in Cornwall this week has been somewhat glorious (until writing this, where it's raining and the wind is hitting against the window...). Myself and Lorna headed to Penzance to visit somewhere we had both never been before. I first heard about Tremenherre Sculpture park through my friend Sarah who has work in the gallery and artisan shop. Before we went I did a little bit of research to see whose work was on display. Richard Long RA, who is best known for his way of documenting the land through walking displays a work which echoes the shape of the land and view. His work is at the highest point of the garden which invites the viewer to look beyond the line of his work and out to the horizon of the sea.  Before Lorna and I went to the garden I bound us both a sketchbook to document the day. Lorna's first practice is Photography, where she studied Marine and Natural History Photography at Falmouth University, and she's always getting me to encourage her to w...

I first came across the work of Lily Irwin on Instagram (obviously) and was struck at how she uses mark making to create beautiful, intricate narratives within her work. The marks dance around the pages of the compositions and create something magical and full of life. There is a real sense of experimentation within her process and ability to convey this into something resolved is inspiring. I adore her chaotic marks which contrast with the more considered repetitive marks. I caught up with Lily to learn more about her thoughts and influences. How long have you been drawing and how important is this to your work? It is difficult to gauge how old I was when I first began to draw. What is certain in my mind is that by the age of three, I had already developed a great love and natural inclination to draw onto walls much to the despair of various family members. Another early memory that jumps out are of lessons with Lesley Fennell, a great friend of mine who lives down the road from u...

Over the weekend I headed to Margate, Kent to the Turner contemporary to see the new building and current exhibition 'Entangled' which is showing the work from many artists who work in weave, thread, trace and stitch. I resonated a lot with parts of the exhibition because of the tactile nature and use of process and material. A lot of the work had been created by building upon something which already exists, piecing fragments together. One artists work Christiane Lohr's work stood out to me the most because of how it had been presented within the gallery space and the delicate nature of how the work is composed.  The white space of the gallery exposes moving shadows of the work, how things are left raw and bare, the environment in which the work sits adds to this tension within her work. The floating forms echo a sense of fragility and balance. They are small and intricate in scale and the work was shown low to the ground. I think this makes the viewer interact with the...