DVAA Member since 2023
Meg Wolensky
Website: megwolensky.com
About:
Originally from West Chester, Pennsylvania, Meg Wolensky (they/she) is a queer nonbinary visual artist based in Philadelphia. Meg performs oil painting as a healing practice as they recover from CPTSD, translating colorful fragments of experiences, memories, and dreams into a cohesive whole that is reflective of queer identity. These investigative collage-like paintings layer cross-sections of colorful personal narrative, trompe-l'œil objects, and indicators of time as it whips by.
Wolensky's work has been exhibited in venues across the country, including Drexel University, Kutztown University, University of Southern Mississippi, Moore College of Art & Design, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), Woodmere Art Museum, InLiquid Gallery, Seraphin Gallery, Rodger LaPelle Galleries, William Way LGBT Community Center, Democratic National Convention, Painted Bride Art Center, Abington Art Center, the Banana Factory Arts & Education Center and many more. in 2023, Wolensky was the recipient of InLiquid's Dina Wind Fellowship by a jury of outstanding curators, artists, and arts leaders from around the Greater Philadelphia area.
Meg serves as the Managing Director of Continuing Education at Moore College of Art & Design where they are passionate about designing accessible arts experiences and work-readiness opportunities for marginalized professional artists and youth in need. With a BFA from the PAFA ('14) and an MS in Arts Administration from Drexel University ('16), Meg provides holistic solutions informed by creative strategy, nonprofit management, and audience research. Meg is passionate about coaching teams to success in creating arts education experiences with big impact. Outside of creating and working, she lends professional curatorial, grant-writing, art handling, and arts nonprofit administration strategy services to other queer artists, students, organizations and initiatives.
Artist Statement:
I'm a still-life painter pulling together weird little clusters of objects that I'm thinking about, creating cryptic still lives and secret little love notes. I paint as a healing practice to explore the reconciliation of trauma as it stands opposed to the freedom and joy of queer autonomy. Each piece serves as an alchemical tincture of queerness. Meaningful ephemera are set in color chasms representing experiences, memories, dreams, relationships and states of being. This work represents authentic queerness and fragmented memories assembled through chromatic cross-sections. My paintings serve as a language of self-preservation - rebuilding a home with space for my whole identity. Nuanced narratives are embedded in objects observed from multiple perspectives over time; as I portray affirming experiences in the present, I also analyze the contrasting systemic devastation beneath the surface. Through this multi-year observation, I create works that categorize emotional patterns, shifts, and healing by combining vivid memories, myths, joys, and pains.
