About Megan Irving
Megan Adams Irving studied studio art at Bard College. She has exhibited her work in artist-run pop-up spaces and more traditional venues, including No-Space Gallery, Rosendale, NY, the Samuel S. Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY, the Corcoran College of Art Design, Washington, D.C., and locally, the Smithy Center for the Arts, Roxbury Arts Group, The Art Garage, and the Cherry Branch Gallery. A variety of interests fuel her work. Travel, gardening, and living generally close to the land are all critical to her lifelong study of the landscape and its connection to humanity. “You can’t see any human/animal story in my abstract landscapes,” Irving noted. ”What you see is the erosion and geometry of the earth with the sky sliding into the water…the scale is both expansive and miniature.” From Cherry Valley, NY, she has lived in the Hudson Valley, on both coasts, in South East Asia, and has traveled nationally and internationally for long periods. She recently settled in Westford, NY, where she keeps a studio, participates in a community clay studio, and works as a consultant helping to improve the web presence of small businesses, artists, and nonprofits in the region. She is committed to art in her community. She has served on the Cherry Valley Artworks board and the Steering Committee for the Glimmerglass Film Days, where she produced a companion art exhibition for each festival.
Artist Statement
Clay is an unnerving medium well suited to work that is, at its core, about the temporary and fragile qualities of life balanced with the persistence of nature and geological time. Even as a mixed media painter, my work has always been interested in the materiality of art-making while exploring the edges of natural and human things. I use ceramic in all its material forms—liquid, plastic, solid but fragile—to make sculptures about painting and landscape and landscape painting. These out-of-scale miniature pieces are aggressively handmade, and though they approach memento mori, they are full of humor and joy.
Education
BA, Studio Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2021, Carbonate Remains, Clay paintings and ceramic sculptures, Hathway and F.C. Galleries, Community Arts Network Oneonta (CANO), Oneonta, NY
2016, Sticks and Stones, Sculptural clay paintings, Annex Gallery, Roseboom, NY
2005 Trimmed Fat, Oil and encaustic paintings, No-Space Gallery, Rosendale, NY
Selected Two and Three Person Exhibitions
2022 Terrain, 25 Main St Collective, Cherry Valley, NY
2022 Setting of Land and Dreams, The Art Garage, Cooperstown, NY
2019 Splash, The Art Garage, Cooperstown, NY
2012 Long Ago and Far Away, Oil and encaustic paintings, Smithy Arts, Smithy Pioneer Gallery, Cooperstown, NY
2004 Red Lawn, Rising Feast, Oil and encaustic paintings, The Gallery at R&F, Kingston, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
2021 Small Works, Roxbury Arts Group, Roxbury, NY
2020 Small Works, Roxbury Arts Group, Roxbury, NY
2019 Special Delivery, Beekman 1802 Mercantile, Sharon Springs, NY
2019 Indigo and BLUE, The Art Garage, Cooperstown, NY
2019 FIRE!, Sculptural clay paintings, Roxbury Arts Group, Roxbury, NY
2018 Small Works, Roxbury Arts Group, Roxbury, NY
2017 The Children Spoke, Cherry Branch Gallery, Cherry Valley, NY
2016 Ceramics and Photo Journals - Capturing the process, Cherry Branch Gallery, Cherry Valley, NY
2016 INTERIOR SPACES: Exploring Vignettes and Environments, Smithy Center for the Arts, Cooperstown, NY
2016 THE LAND: Honoring the local landscape and all it provides, "Almost Lost Landscapes", a tribute to Henry S. F. Cooper curated by Otsego 2000, Smithy Center for the Arts, Cooperstown, NY
2014 Neighbors, Annex Gallery, Roseboom, NY
2014, Animal Animus: The Tamed, the Wild and the In-between, The Art Garage, Cooperstown, NY
2009 Artomatic, Washington, DC
2008 Art Anonymous, Corcoran Gallery and College of Art, Washington, DC
2005 Encaustic Works, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, New York
2004 Basement Studios Project, 59 O'neil St., Kingston, NY
2003 Surface Matter and Artifice: Contemporary Works by Encaustic Artists, Dutchess Community College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, NY
2003 Open Studio Tour, Art Society of Kingston and Coffey Gallery, Kingston, NY
2003 Kingston Sculpture Biennial, Site-specific installation, Kingston, NY
Curator
2022, Balance, Carrie Mae Smith, Steph Marcus, and Molly Welch Whyte, Community Arts Network Oneonta (CANO), Oneonta, NY
2019 Adaptations, Christina Hunt Wood and selections from the Black Maria Film Festival, Smithy Center for the Arts, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
2018 Journeys/Enroute, Yeon Jin Kim, and Ted Lott, Smithy Center for the Arts, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
2017 On Arrival, Pooh Kaye and Kara Wood-Ginder, Village Hall Ballroom, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
2016 Earth Shattering, Smithy Center for the Arts, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
2015 Personal Perspectives: Five Artists’ Sense of Place, Smithy Center for the Arts, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
2014 Edward Burtynsky, Smithy Center for the Arts, for Glimmerglass Film Days and Otsego 2000, Cooperstown, NY
Workshops and Studios
2020-present Teaching Artist, Smithy Clay Studio, Smithy Center for the Arts, Cooperstown, NY
2014-present Studio member and student, Smithy Clay Studio, Smithy Center for the Arts, Cooperstown, NY
2019 Elizabeth Nields Clay Workshop, August workshop participant, Gilbertsville, NY
Other Affiliations
2018-2020 Member of the Board, Cherry Valley Artworks, Cherry Valley, NY
2013-2020 Glimmerglass Film Days Steering Committee, Cooperstown, NY