Red Lodge Clay Center – Short-Term Resident 2016
Megan Bogonovich received her BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, MD (1999) and her MFA in Ceramics from University of Montana, Missoula, MT (2003). She is currently based in Norwich, VT. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally, in galleries such as Gavlak Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Mrs. Gallery, Maspeth, NY; Kishka Gallery, Hartford, VT; and Gravity Gallery, North Adams, MA; and in museums such as The Kent Museum, Calais, VT; Plains Art Museum, Fargo ND; Disjecta Contemporary Art Center, Portland, OR; and Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton MA. She is represented in Vermont by Kishka Gallery.
My instinct as an artist is to work with multiple parts, many bits and pieces, organized intuitively. Repetitive additions often result in decorative and embellished surfaces. I like to work in groups and consider the individual pieces to be part of a fluid whole floating between making and manufacturing, trying a new variation, accumulating. I have developed a process of casting many small forms from a variety of handmade plaster molds. After the labor of making the molds, I can cast a vast palette of shapes quickly.
Introducing speed to my practice has heightened the oddball-ness of the compositions. Spontaneous assembly indulges wacky. I’m enforcing a scale and a theme in this body of work. Small and floral. The scale is a commitment to the decorative placement of ceramic objects in our interiors. Pottery and figurines. Treasuring home-made, folksy, the theme gives a noun type landing point, but allows for fantasy and formal compositional problem solving. With an eye to the boldness over the prettiness of nature. An overgrown natural unpredictable beast mashed into a formal English garden. A Pierre Bonnard and Tony Smith lovechild.