Featured Artist Megan Coyle

Artsy Shark presents featured artist Megan Coyle.  Enjoy her collage portfolio, and see more of her work by visiting her website.

 

 

Megan Coyle grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. She attended Elon University where she graduated in 2008 with a degree in painting and creative writing. Although she was formally trained in painting, she worked on collages outside of her painting classes and completed several portrait collages for her senior thesis exhibition. Since undergraduate school, Coyle has moved back to the Washington D.C. area and continues to pursue her artwork. Her work has been exhibited in places like the Smithsonian Ripley Center, Nicholas Colasanto Center, Art League Gallery, and the Fisher Gallery.

 

 

Coyle uses a technique she calls “painting with paper,” where she recreates the look and feel of a painting through the manipulation of paper and magazine strips. She creates representational work, focusing on portraiture, animals, landscapes, and still life.

 

 

Artist Statement: I was once told that when I draw or paint, I shouldn’t draw objects or people as I see them in my mind. Instead, I should pay attention to every detail in front of me—focusing on the shapes of colors that make up different planes. Over the years, I’ve continued to follow this advice and it has become a central idea behind my work.

 

 

Although I was trained in painting, over the years, I was consistently drawn to collage. I believe that my attachment to the medium is rooted in the way I approach every subject as an artist. I’m constantly breaking down what I see into smaller pieces, piecing together each area bit by bit, occasionally stepping back to see the work in its entirety.

 

 

Goals: I’m constantly striving to become a better artist by practicing my craft as often as possible. I also like investing a lot of time into discovering different ways to share my work with others. At the moment, I’m trying to learn more about video and animation so I can create short videos of my process and make collages that I can animate on my computer. I’m really interested in the tools that technology has to offer, and it’s exciting to think of all the possibilities there are with using these different outlets.

 

 

Current Work: I am currently working on writing and illustrating a children’s book. I hope to finish the book in the next few months so I can self-publish it and give a few talks on the artwork created for it. I’m also working on several commission portraits. The commission process is always a challenging one, but the end product can give you a great feeling of accomplishment.

 

 

Inspiration: My inspiration comes from common, everyday scenes and events. With a background in creative writing, I’m interested in the narrative nature of the world around us. I’m also drawn to the bright colors that exist in different environments, and I often find inspiration from trips to the zoo, art museums, science museums, and my travels to other cities. There’s so much possibility in the world around us. I love finding details that I can piece together to create scenes that are like snapshots of familiar experiences.