Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Mosholder
Hi Megan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My story is an artistic journey of exploration, growth, and an increasing commitment to creating immersive, site-specific works that blur the boundaries between art, architecture, and space.
My interest in art began early, but it was during my academic training that my artistic voice truly began to take shape. I hold a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from the Ohio State University, where I honed my technical skills in painting and sculpture. My early education exposed me to a variety of media and artistic practices, but it was through these explorations that I developed an interest in materiality and spatial engagement.
Following my BFA, I pursued graduate degrees: first at Ashland University, where I received my Master in Education; second at The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), where I earned a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). It was during my time at SCAD that my conceptual interests in space, material, and light began to crystallize, laying the foundation for my signature approach to large-scale, site-specific installations.
My career path has been diverse. As of 2023, I added an Instructional Design Graduate Certificate from Georgia State University to my educational background. My skills include professional artist, project manager, instructional designer, consultant, program manager and educator. I use all these skills to offer a range of consultancy services that can help businesses with their public art acquisition and art planning needs while providing organizations with proposed solutions for effectiveness and efficiency.
As a professional artist, I create monumental artworks that relate the symbolic with the lived. With an eye toward light, shape, space, interior, and exterior, I create engaging art installations. My studio travels with my search for installation locations; it is never in the same place twice. I prefer sites where nature is permeated with manufactured elements or interior environments contrasting with architecture. In my work, I investigate how architecture communicates messages through historical narratives and societal aspirations to reveal hidden meanings in man-made, manipulated spaces. Using biophilic, conceptual design elements, I create compositions that emphasize the beauty of nature. Volumetric forms composed of linear elements encircle and encourage appreciation for these environments. Natural and synthetic light often enhance my installations, creating multisensory artworks; the audience experiences them with their eyes and bodies. The completed compositions are usually larger than life, sometimes monumental in scale, with the goal of rekindling the sensation of looking by engulfing the visual and kinetic senses.
I received a master’s in fine arts in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 20212 and have since received many awards from institutions such as the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. I have been commissioned by leading corporations including the Microsoft Art Collection, Google, and the Atlanta Beltline, and included in public art programs, museum exhibitions, and art fairs. Interest in my installations has led to various international commissions, evidenced by my inclusion within the European Cultural Centre’s 2022 Personal Structures exhibition presented during the 59th Venice Biennale. International experience is extremely important to me: I have attended artist residencies and installed artwork in Australia, China, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.
I have been told that my large-scale installations also express my tenacity. Following a September 2018 car accident where the gas tank ruptured and ignited, trapping me inside, I endured burns to over sixty percent of my body. While the event left indelible marks, it also provided new heights for me to reach.
I continue to create installations that relay my devotion to my work and the communities I engage. Currently, I reside in Atlanta, GA, at the Goat Farm Creative Arts Center, and have worked as a full-time professional artist for thirteen years.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Most definitely. Isn’t life a series of obstacles and challenges? As soon as you navigate/solve one, there’s a whole new crop of problems to deal with.
The challenge I am currently dealing with is my disability. I was in a severe car accident in 2018. I flipped my car, the gas tank ruptured and ignited, and I was trapped in my burning car. I sustained burns over 60% of my body and spent four and a half months in Grady Hospital’s burn unit. I have had over 36 surgeries, including the amputation of my left leg and I am partially wheelchair dependent. I cannot begin to tell you how difficult it is to succeed as an artist. Pile some disability on top of that heap and it’s almost completely impossible.
I have only just begun to accept my disability. I have honestly been fighting my way through this whole recovery believing that if I only worked hard enough, I could walk normally again. I now realize that living in a constant state of fighting is impossibly exhausting and the only way I’ll be able to walk again is if I can get some bionic legs.
This past October, I built an installation for the Goat Farm Art Center’s SITE, a group exhibition that emphasized site-specific installations. I decided to build five 72” x 48” x 6” frames with installation elements inside. I was overly ambitious and quickly discovered I was in over my head. I worked roughly 118 hours in one week. At one point, thinking I wasn’t able to get the work completed in time, I lay down on the ground and started sobbing. I thought, something has got to change…
Long story short, the work was completed thanks to a team of dedicated assistants. The work was well received, and the Goat Farm has decided to make them permanent. But sadly, I blew my budget and am still trying to get these assistants paid.
I’m realizing that as a disabled person, I simply need more of everything to even out the playing field. The world is not accessible and there is very little support for us wheelchair users. And as sympathetic as they want to be, there is no way an able-bodied person can truly understand what living with a pair of wheels strapped to your butt is like.
What I learned from all of this is: adapt or die. This translates to me working in the studio, building small works that will (ideally) emulate the large-scale installations. Either that or I need more money to pay a crew to assist me. In a perfect world, I’ll get both AND my bionic legs!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a site-specific installation artist. With an eye toward light, shape, space, interiors, and exteriors, I construct sculptural, tensile installations linking the symbolic with the lived. My studio moves with my search for installation locations; it is never the same place twice. The sites I prefer are those where nature contrasts with manufactured elements. By examining historical narratives and societal aspirations, I seek to uncover hidden meanings in man-made, manipulated spaces. Nature-inspired compositions emphasize biophilic, conceptual design elements. I construct volumetric compositions of linear elements to promote appreciation of these spaces. My installations often utilize natural and synthetic light, making them multisensory, engaging the audience through both their eyes and bodies. My completed compositions engulf the visual and kinetic senses.
My work is inspired by my deep engagement with both the materiality and spatial qualities of both architecture and landscape. The interplay between my artwork and its environment is central to my vision, transforming the surrounding architecture and/or environment into a dynamic, living element of the piece. By responding to each unique location with sensitivity and creativity, I create immersive experiences that invite viewers to reimagine the spaces they inhabit.
The installations I build are often inspired by the specific qualities of the location I am working in, whether it’s a gallery, a public space, or an architectural feature. I take time to research and understand the history of the place, its function, and its spatial dynamics. Sometimes, I respond to the building’s original intent, its aesthetic, or its socio-cultural significance. For example, I have worked with spaces that have a particular historical weight or emotional resonance, and I craft installations that speak to or transform that context.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I am constantly listening to music.
The installations themselves are a spatial explorations partially inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s Poetic of Space.
I recently devoured Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead.
I am constantly hunting for new art opportunities and find that the website callforentry.org to be incredibly useful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://meganmosholder.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganmosholderart/
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/ArtistMCM?_rdc=1&_rdr
