March 2013
Meaghan Haughian / Winter Garden
March 1 – 31, 2013
Vernissage Friday March 1st / 7-10pm
Northern winters are all-encompassing. They bring long, dark nights and wrap us in cold whiteness, encouraging plants and humans alike to lie dormant. Hibernation draws us inwards, an opportunity to burrow, reflect and regenerate. In springtime, energetic buds magically reappear. The earth’s annual cycle of renewal reflects the human journey through birth and death, joy and sorrow, warmth and frigidity. The concept of seasonal growth and repair serves as the backdrop upon which these collaged drawings have developed.
After a few years primarily exploring objects and space, this series marks my deliberate return to the female figure. Now, however, she shares the stage with her surroundings: I have placed her in a vast northern landscape to observe what will happen. My interest lies in the relationships between interior/exterior and private/public, specifically as they relate to the female character’s identity. How does she respond to the outside world and how does it – the landscape, the garden – respond to her?
Winter Garden explores how we are shaped, and sometimes overcome, by our environment. These scenes recount the journeys of life, emphasizing the relationship between our connection with the earth and our physical, emotional and psychological fragility. The figure exists in her landscape, merging and separating. Clothing and other props serve both as protection and as a barrier. Snow and ice glisten and envelop. Flowers, trees and roots flourish and decay. Winter garden is a hopeful paradox: plant a seed in the snow and watch it grow.
– Meaghan Haughian, January 2013
Meaghan Haughian combines paint, photographs, collage, text and found objects to explore the experiences and emotions that we share collectively as human beings but often experience in isolation. She merges real and imagined narratives in an ongoing search for links between life’s contradictions and dualities. Meaghan earned her BFA (Printmaking & Photography) from Mount Allison University. She is a grant recipient and her work is included in numerous private and public collections, including the Ottawa Art Gallery, the City of Ottawa and the National Art Centre’s French Theatre.