July Gallery Night with Megan VanKanegan

Manic Mondays by Lana del Cray:

A collection of visual diary entries from the patron saint of overthinking, emotional support beverages, and turning minor inconveniences into major plot points. Through drawing, painting, and assemblage, the work uses humor, pop culture references, and storytelling to explore vulnerability, identity, and the occasional feeling that Taylor Swift and James Bond are raging inside of you.

Opening Reception: Friday July 3rd 5-7:30pm

My practice grows from a curiosity about what materials can hold. Through drawing, painting, and assemblage, I often begin with what is found or left behind. I pull things apart, reconfigure them, and trace how materials carry memory through texture, history, and transformation. My work asks how materials remember and what they choose to forget. I am drawn to found and discarded materials as a way of exploring questions of worth, belonging, and renewal. The way a material pushes back often reveals something human, mirroring the instability of memory and emotion. I treat making as both repair and inquiry, an ongoing act of care that asks for patience, attention, and curiosity. Alter egos and self-portraiture frequently appear throughout my work. Through play, imagination, and storytelling, these characters create space to explore vulnerability from different perspectives. They allow me to move between memory and invention, using humor and reflection to navigate experiences that can be difficult to approach directly. Through layering, cutting, painting, and reworking, I look for moments where fragility and persistence meet. My studio practice is a space for slowing down, listening, and remaining present with what continues to change. Megan VanKanegan is an artist, educator, and designer based in Ithaca, New York. She holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Columbia College Chicago and currently teaches studio art at Tompkins Cortland Community College.

The show will be available for viewing throughout the month of July during office hours. 

This program is made possible in part with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and NYS Legislature, administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County.