Meganne Rosen moved back to Springfield, Missouri in 2018 after residing in Oakland, California for two years where she graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Rosen also completed a Master of Arts (MA) in Studio Art and Theory at Drury University (2011). In Springfield, Meganne teaches Art History I & II, Drawing I, Art & Experience, and Foundation: 2D Design in the Arts and Humanities department at Ozarks Technical Community College. She also teaches Fibers and 2D Design in the Art and Design department at Missouri State University, has taught in the Arts Administration program at Drury University, and teaches at the Springfield Art Museum. Last summer (2019) she taught as a member of the Visual Arts Faculty for the Missouri Fine Arts Academy. Rosen also taught the History of Modern Art, Contemporary Art History, and Modern Art and the Grotesque as a graduate assistant at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She has experience teaching seated, online, and hybrid courses at the collegiate level.
Rosen’s recent projects include her solo exhibition Bathymetry at Obelisk Home (March, 2020); her inclusion in the Angad Biannual in St. Louis, MO (January- August, 2020); her solo exhibition Transparency & Toxicity at ArtLink in Fort Wayne, IN (December, 2019); her thesis exhibition at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco (April, 2018); the publication of “Isoluminance, Racial Trauma, and the Stamina of Perception: Amanda Wallace’s Field | House” for the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts and contemtporary.org; her curation and participation in Artifice & Nature, a four person exhibition in San Francisco (November, 2017); and her inclusion in several group exhibitions (2018-2020) in California, Missouri, New York, and Oregon.
Rosen was an artist in residence in 2018 at both LACAWAC in Aerial Lake, Pennsylvania and Byrdcliffe in Woodstock, New York. She was featured in volume twelve of the print edition of Create! Magazine (December, 2018) and in an interview on their website. Meganne is also featured in volume 42 of Studio Visit Magazine.
Rosen presented her paper “Craft, Color, & Contours: The Influence of Pop in Contemporary Fiber Art” in April, 2019 in the Art & Design Culture section at the 2019 PCA/ACA conference in Washington D.C.
Rosen served as the vice president of the board of the Springfield Regional Arts Council and is a co-founder of ideaXfactory among many other roles in local arts organizations and arts advocacy.
Upcoming publications of her work may be found in DeLuge Arts & Literary Journal(Fall, 2020) and Bangor Literary Journal (Fall, 2020).
megannerosen.com
Observation and curiosity drive my studio practice. Through the investigation of and experimentation with different kinds of materials, I express discontent with the current political climate as well as reflect on my experiences growing up in the American Midwest. My work explores entropy, artifice, consumerism, and my place in the lineage of abstraction in contemporary and modern painting and its relationship with installation art.
Using found matter, fiber works, oil and acrylic painting, remnant fabrics, and photography (found, and my own), I examine the relationship of each component’s basic materiality and commercial object-hood. Exploiting the mark making and sculptural potential of these entities is central to my practice.
I compose mixed media pieces which are layered in visual dialogues. Some of the works reference the body in scale and are almost costume-like. The work evokes an intimate recollection of garments worn, skins shed, and packaging discarded. Each assemblage or installation is a partnership between the materials I work with and the sociopolitical, cultural context of our times.
Currently, I am working on a series of oil paintings on transparent acetate. For these works, my palette is inspired by the alluring sheen of oil spills on pavement and the iridescence of polluted sea foam. The intersection of the natural and the artificial is a site of challenge, conquest, and cohabitation. This work explores toxicity through artifice and decay. As light filters through the paint and acetate, ephemeral auras are projected on the walls creating an additional layer of color. When the works are rolled, they become core samples. Black holes of color with little universes enclosed inside. When the various iterations of this series are placed in proximity to each other, a visual conversation emerges between painting and sculpture, density and light, toxicity and beauty.
