Megan Bisbee

Megan Bisbee

meganbisbeeartist@gmail.com

Website: www.meganbisbee.com

   163 University Ave, Ventura, CA

I am a recent east coast transplant. I moved to California less than a year ago to attend Pacifica Graduate Institute, following my passion for exploring the psyche through art, movement, meditation, and psychotherapy.

In my studio, I make colorful paintings and whimsical found-object sculptures. In each piece I create surreal vignettes by re-contextualizing recognizable imagery, and combining it with exuberant abstraction. I do not pre-plan my artwork. Instead my work guides me through an intuitive, nonlinear process of inspiration, awareness, and integration of newly conscious experience.

My creative practices function for me like a psychotherapeutic relationship between therapist and client, or between healer and patient within and shamanic ritual. Psychologist Philip M. Bromberg calls the space where the unconscious and conscious meet the “interface of dissociation” in psychotherapy. Holding this safe space within my studio allows previously unknown parts of my psyche to show up as imagery and emotional experience. The integration of these experiences endows a sense of wholeness that Bromberg calls, “the primary source of healing and growth.”

Aesthetically, My works speaks to Surrealist artists Max Ernst and Gorgio D’Cirico, Visionary artists Mati Klarwein and Pablo Amaringo, and contemporary artist Sarah Sze. The contemplative function of my artistic practice along with the visceral and emotional qualities of my imagery, speak most directly to the work of artist Frida Kahlo. The imagery in my work is not representation, rather a journey itself. Lately, I am especially inspired by the Katie Sanford and Carl Jung's use of painting in their individuation processes.