Intervals by Megan Vossler

Opening Reception Saturday July 24th, from 6-9PM

Exhibition Runs: July 24 – September 5, 2021

 

The title Intervals is derived from all of its various meanings: an intervening time or space; a pause in activity; a space between two things; a gap. Megan Vossler’s work in Intervals bridges the span between pre- and late-pandemic life, and explores this uncertain time through three different subjects: water, the sky, and everyday domestic objects.

 

For several years, Vossler has been investigating water as both a literal and metaphorical force: specifically, the swells and waves of oceans and large lakes. Invisible forces surround you in these massive bodies of water—from methodical tidal contractions to the most unpredictable, deadly undertow. In the wall-sized watercolor installation Storm Surge, the separate panels focus the perspective in and out like a camera lens, and the horizon line shifts in each sheet of paper. When joined together, there is a disorienting sense of space, recalling the feeling of bobbing in a rough sea, the surrounding water lurching, shifting and recombining. Other images of turbulent water, placed throughout the exhibition, are meant to expand the metaphorical context for this loss of solid footing.

 

Interspersed with these works are others that respond more immediately to the strangeness of pandemic life. Since the months of lockdown, Vossler has been making drawings and watercolors of objects and small spaces in her immediate surroundings.  Time spent rendering ordinary, familiar objects and minor spaces became a way to cope with the blur of pandemic time. As an antidote to the continual upending of routines, Vossler began in January to make a small painting of the sky each morning around sunrise. This became a grounding ritual, and a way to punctuate the fog of days in the depths of pandemic winter. She has continued to make a painting of the sky every day, even as the mornings have stretched earlier and the light has grown brighter again.

 

Megan Vossler received her BA from Brown University, and her MFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Her artwork has been exhibited at museums and galleries around the country, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the de Young Museum. Megan’s work has been recognized by many national and regional arts organizations, including Yaddo, the Jerome and McKnight Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts (for Ekphrastic 2.0 at SooVAC), and the Minnesota State Arts Board. She teaches drawing at Macalester College in Saint Paul.