What They Said in Public, works by Megan Bickel

An opening reception will be held on Friday February 28, 6-8 PM for "What They Said in Public", featuring new works by Megan Bickel in the Wilson Gallery.

In What They Said in Public, multimedia artist Megan Bickel spends a considerable amount of time meditating on two words as they relate to one another in this contemporary moment: illusion and allusion.

Illusion — of course—references a trick, has a visual connotation, and is typically used to describe the rendering of an image. An allusion, on the other hand, is primarily literary and depends on the imagination of the viewer. Interestingly, there appears to be a contradiction in these two similar ideas that display a very specific power dynamic between purveyors of visual and purveyors of written information.

Here, the power dynamic that Bickel is referencing can at times appear malignant in its presentation. Meaning, for the illusion, that there is a historical power to deceive in a way that may appear psychologically threatening when considered by the viewer. This threat doesn’t appear as strongly in the allusion because in the act of reading a text the viewer (or reader) is reliant on their own imagination. Thus, all of the conjured imagery or ideas that arise during reading are contingent on what they have consumed prior.

The above information is critical for the artist when considering her process, areas of research, and material usage as she has a tendency to lack a loyalty to subject or material and is instead interested in conceptual misinformation and how that idea can be relayed. Looking at perceptual psychology, sociological camouflaging, propaganda, political science, advertising, science fiction, anthropology, and art history (specifically Post-Modern and Post-Digital Painting) she offers summated opportunity for the audience to consider misinformation in the Digital Age.

Materially speaking, she is approaching this conceptual problem by mimicking painting with materials that reference, or are in fact “ a painting” while lacking several of the qualities of a painting. For example, by digitally collaging segments of her paintings, printing them on to a decal, and then painting a mural depicting the shadow of a painting as a way to reference a painting as an object; she utilizes perceptual and periphery visual mapping to confuse the viewer of what they are seeing until further inspection—of which becomes clear after moments of consideration.

Believing that it is ethically problematic to believe that a visual artist has the ability or skill to “teach” a public (or assume their interest) about the wrong-doings of contemporary images; Bickel instead hopes that by cultivating systems of confusion, the exhibition space can become a sort of mental exercise— training the audience mind to consistently question the intent of the image-maker in our contemporary world. A world where election fraud and manipulation of public media consumption during political campaigns can be completed on the other side of the world— as an act of war.

Megan Bickel is a multidisciplinary artist and writer based out of Louisville, Kentucky. Bickel is currently working toward her Master of Fine Arts at the University of Louisville and received her BFA and BA (Magna Cum Laude) from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2012. She has since then been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions, and interviewed in publications regionally and nationally.

Megan is also the Founder and Gallerist for houseguest, a house gallery ran parallel to her partner, Jacob Wilson’s (Sous Chef, 610 Magnolia), SUPPERCLUB LAB. houseguest encourages artists to interact with and activate the gallery space while exploring new ideas and concepts that feel respective to the zeitgeist and beyond.

Bickel was the Co-Founder and Editor of Five-Dots (2016-19), a digital publication that covered the Midwest, ran in collaboration with photographer and LGBTQ+ activist Cassandra Zetta. Bickel is a regular contributor to Aeqai, a non-profit arts periodical based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.