Meg Hitchcock
ARTIST STATEMENT
Meg Hitchcock is a New York-based painter, three-dimensional artist, and writer. She is a 2024 Pollock Krasner Grant recipient and a 2023 Gottlieb Foundation Grant recipient. She received a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and studied classical painting in Florence, Italy. Her work with paint and text is an expression of her lifelong interest in religion, psychology, and literature. Hitchcock's work has been shown nationally and internationally and has been included in shows at MASS MoCA, Currier Museum of Art, CODA Museum (Netherlands), Virginia MOCA, and Crystal Bridges Museum, where she was included in State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now. Her work has been reviewed in numerous publications, including Art in America, ArtCritical, The New Criterion, Huffington Post, and Hyperallergic. Hitchcock writes the art blog “IN THEIR STUDIOS: Conversations with Artists”, where she invites artists to discuss their work and process.
BIOGRAPHY
In my two- and three-dimensional paintings I explore light and shadow as a metaphor for the human condition, with its many complexities and contradictions. I am interested in the inner transfiguration that takes place apart from theological dogma, leading to higher states of awareness. Taking my inspiration from religious iconography, I use inverse perspective and conflicting light sources to redirect attention from pictorial space back to the viewer. These subtle shifts in perspective turn the focus inward, where one encounters authenticity and self-realization in their myriad forms. The boxes and geometric shapes in my paintings cast irreconcilable shadows across one another, creating tension that is harmonized within the overall composition. I often include text cut from sacred books and classic literature, citing passages that speak to our divine nature as well as our humanity. While the content is based on my former affiliation with organized religion, the work is intentionally ambiguous and open to interpretation.
The Thousand-Eyed Present (from Ralph Waldo Emerson), 2025
Mat board structures, acrylic paint, 25 ¼” x 24 ½” x 6 ½”