Aspex Gallery based at Gunwharf Quays has been delighted to welcome artist Megan Georgia Smith for a three-month residency in their Artist Studio at the end of 2021. As the artist’s residency now draws to a close, Megan invites you to see the work she has created throughout her time at Aspex in a free Open Studio and Q&A event on Sunday 6 March, 11am–2pm.
Megan Georgia Smith’s creative practice is centred around class, youth culture, and the condition of being human. Growing up in Aldershot, the imagery in her paintings is influenced by Megan’s own background, and her current social and cultural surroundings. Stereotypes of working-class folk and young people are a common motif in her works because these are the people she feels she most identifies within society, as a 22-year-old from working-class roots. By amplifying such stereotypes, she illustrates a dark sense of humour, critiquing and mocking the idea that every working-class/young person can be categorised this way (when of course – they cannot).
During her residency at Aspex, Megan has created a new body of work responding to the shared struggles that young people, such as herself, have experienced, or are experiencing, living in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within the works, these struggles are juxtaposed, with ideas on how we might begin to offer young people a sense of hope, optimism, and utopian resolution going into 2022. These ideas and imaginations stem from reflecting upon Megan’s own experiences of the COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions, and the major events that consequently occurred during her life, in the years that she celebrated her 21st and 22nd birthday.
On Sunday 6 March, 11am–2pm, Megan will be presenting her final body of work in the Aspex Studio, free to all to drop in. There will also be an opportunity to ask Megan questions in a Q&A at 2pm. Click here to book your free space to the Q&A. Megan’s residency marks Aspex’s first offered to alumni of CVAN South East’s Platform Graduate Award. Megan Georgia Smith previously participated in the award in 2020, exhibiting at Aspex Gallery.
Find out more about the artist below.
