Thursday 21 June 2012



Hello,

I will be exhibiting work at the Festival of the Erotic Arts in Edinburgh (22nd - 24th June 2012), if you are in town, please pop down and have a look! Should definitely be an experience :)

Visit: their website for further details.

Tuesday 19 June 2012


Hello again!

I will be exhibiting film work at the ICKLE FILM FEST  in Dundee (21st - 24th June 2012), you can check out their website for more details.


Wednesday 6 June 2012























Work in progress in the studio.





Artist statement
Meghan Quigley

My practice concerns the mediation of images and the contextualisation of women in nature, focusing on both the production values behind images created in the media and the throw-away nature of the magazine. I am interested in the language used in advertising: the artificiality of staged performance, exaggeration of the mundane, hyperbolic gesture and the indulgence of colour and romantic ideals, in order to create a sensory experience that immerses the viewer. My interpretation of this becomes a recorded and exaggerated parody or un-mediated response in the video work highlighting the absurdity through repetition and exaggeration.                                                                                                            Removing the body becomes an exercise in removing the historic of women in nature; traces of the body remain and lend a haunting quality. The viewer is free to use the space to re-imagine the scene and be transported into the mysterious, dream-like romance.  In this way, I explore and critique notions rooted in cultural perceptions of the body such as: landscape art historically, the ‘muse,’ the male gaze, the unidentified gaze, post-feminism and the human condition.                                                                                                                                               Female magazines fascinate me: you can flick through the material within five minutes and be satisfied. Piles and piles begin to collect in doctor’s waiting rooms; issues from December 1990 linger next to May 2012 - stacked and ready to be thumbed through by the next patient. Or they are left absentmindedly on planes or in train stations. They are dog-eared, ripped, pages that have captured the reader’s imagination torn out, embossed with coffee cup stains, faces scribbled over, items circled, phone numbers jotted onto the cover, set down and forgotten. The images are absorbed quickly and disregarded just as quick; the text is ignored, almost irrelevant in the wake of consuming as many images as possible and yet the reader keeps flicking.
                Despite this, the expense and effort required to create one single page in a magazine like Vogue is overwhelming, I wanted to try and understand the absurdity behind the creation of these images that are destined to end up in the bin or forgotten. By examining the process of engineering the images, i attempt to catalogue and identity the visual code required to entice the viewer. It becomes largely a  precise, perfunctory process, far removed from the alluring, romantic imagery - post production will spend hours editing each individual pixel on their screen, even the smallest and most mundane of plants hidden in the background is given as much weight and attention as a model.  

Tuesday 5 June 2012





Found imagery and paint

A4
Jan 2012

Monday 4 June 2012



Film Still

Title: Herbal Essences 
Date: October 2011
Medium: Stop Motion Video
Specification: No Sound
Duration: 3.14 minutes

I was continuing to work with the Herbal Essences advert and parodying this experience. I was focusing on the long history of women in nature, (Mother Earth, supernatural, seductive pastoral imagery) the idea that the female is connected to the earth and is a part of it but as suggested, we are not plant life. We do not consist of this natural substance, it is ridiculous to view it the female body in this way and I wanted to expose this absurdity. I felt it was a subtle approach to surrealism as opposed to the more obvious routes i have been exploring.

Having been experimenting with stop motion, I felt the slow pace/jerky movements really added to the mood of the piece, making the experience uncomfortably slow and relentless. I really love the technique of stop motion and I particularly like the symbolism of using photography to create film, this piece uses over 500 images to create a single, coherent streaming video and I think this ties in with ideas of manipulation, exaggeration and authenticity of imagery/experience.

 The model is stylistically over-posed, using a modelling technique known as ‘turtle necking’ which is considered elegant but is extremely uncomfortable for the model. I wanted to suggest a very meditative, controlled experience.  The exposing of the neck is in reference to Man Ray’s Anatomical series as well as a suggestion of vulnerability to enhance the intimacy and seclusion of the incident. The model never engages with the audience and it is about her experience.

Reference to broadcasting with the blue background, suggesting of blue/green screen – connection to how females are contextualised and mediated in spaces.

Reference to Peter Greenman’s ‘Draughtman’s Contract,’ in which he is killed by eating poetry.
Reference to ectoplasm - Ectoplasmics are (mainly female) spiritual mediums that excrete material/fabric like substances from orifices of their body, that can be transformed into limbs, faces or bodies of spirits. 

However, it almost an entirely fraudulent practise based on the power of suggestion and emotive appeal to the audience. Suggestion of artifice, falsity of the way images are constructed and mediated.

Sunday 3 June 2012



Feb 2011
Digital Collage using found imagery
1 x 0.7m




My practice concerns the mediation of images and the contextualisation of women, whether via broadcasting, media images and the use of blue/green screen or how women are presented in nature using ‘seductive’ pastoral imagery. My interpretation of this becomes a recorded and exaggerated parody or un-mediated response in the video work. In this way, I explore and critique notions rooted in cultural perceptions of the body such as: art historically, the ‘muse,’ the male gaze, the unidentified gaze, symbolism, feminism and the human condition.

Saturday 2 June 2012



























Digitally manipulated photograph
1 x 0.7m
April 2012

Friday 1 June 2012

































Digital collages using found imagery
(A4)
April 2012