Megan Brooks
they/them
Megan Brooks is a sculpture artist and metalsmith living and working in Atlanta, GA. They received their Bachelors in Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in Sculpture + Extended Media. They have exhibited work at the Anderson Gallery in Richmond, VA as well as the Jenkins Fine Arts Center in Greenville, NC. Brooks approaches their work through a grotesquely feminine, melodramatic persona, creating work centered on the domestic and foods of the American South. Drawing on elements of kitsch and horror, they unite the work in a strange hyperreal, queer world.
“I explore the special intimacy of objects in relation to the body to investigate conflicts between queerness and traditional understandings about love and care. My hand functions as my tool for mirroring my queerness within the materiality of small, personal objects. Kitsch, flamboyance, and exaggeration shamelessly impose themselves onto forms and color. Through layering the feminine and frivolous, a doubling of its achieved to the point of bordering on grotesque and reaching a fluidity of gender. In the drama of form, color, and function, I, the maker take on a persona, a character who approaches each object with mock seriousness.”
"Breastplate functions as a protective and powerful piece of adornment, an ode to the walnut. It features a brooch with basket setting that encloses a walnut still tucked into its shell. A larger brass object hooks onto the brooch. It mirrors the texture and shape of the walnut and something more bodily. The brass object sits on the line between resembling the shape of the walnut shell and a heart, kitsch symbol of love. Queerness exists within that ambiguity, contrary to what is normative and what has been outlined. The heart and the shell are protective symbols; the heart adding a layer of femininity and preciousness. Encasing the walnut in a stone setting places reverence onto the shell: the exterior protector presented to the world. As a queer person, the exterior we present is so intricately linked to identity, protection, and our expression of joy.
The brass object can be detached from the brooch and held lovingly in the hands. Only the wearer can access the chased texture of the vulnerable walnut. Through chasing metal, I was able to play with an evident maker’s hand and parallels between the bodily and the edible. The masculine sharpness of the spikes on the sides contrast with the soft, curving forms of the rest of the piece. Rather than evoke violence, they prompt the wearer to learn to tenderly handle the object. They must think about where to place their hands, how to place it against their body. The safe space exists as an agreement of protection and care between the object and the body."
How does your work relate to the theme Adorned Serenity— How does the work function as a wearable safe space?
Breastplate, Brass, walnut, spring steel, 2021
How do you see this piece existing in the world as a wearable safe space?
Or is this piece specific to you?
“Spanning several inches of brass across, the weight of Breastplate is heavy on the chest it adorns. When held in the hand, it nearly fills the whole palm. Its scale and weight make its presence as a jewelry object overstated to the wearer. As the maker, I create within a persona. She is the heightened ultra-queer version of myself that revels in melodrama, hyper femininity, and the abject. Objects and adornment are intimately constructed to fit within her surreal world full of flamboyance, kitsch, and elements of femininity and masculinity detached from gender. The objects follow a nebulous logic system where multiple associations overlap, coexist, and intertwine. The textured back to Breastplate resembles the nut, resembles a heart, resembles a landscape, resembles the body. Breastplate is adornment yet can also be seen as a shield or armor. It has the ever so slight potential of being a weapon with its sharp points. Its expansive associations celebrate what is complicated and bizarre by letting all things be true at once. Within the persona, I experience a safe space to express a state of hyper femininity and ultra-queerness to an extreme, something that can be difficult to inhibit in daily life. In this safe space, societal expectations and constraints on sexuality and gender are cast off.”
If someone found this piece and needed an instruction manual to make the safe space work — what’s a quick how to?
“What dictates a safe space is more particular to the person existing in that safe space. I make work that is very personal, centered on my own relationship with the object I create. While I do see others being able to use this brooch, I inherently am making for a smaller group of people to connect to: a queer audience. Queerness is the subversion of what is conventional and therefore there are an expanse of ways to express it. Adornment being used to express queerness allows one to experience euphoria by presenting oneself as something besides what is common and expected. If someone connects with the piece, then it will become a safe space for them. To write an instruction manual would take away that individual experience and some of the tenderness of their relationship to the brooch. I am excited about the potential that comes from the individual ways others might engage with it.”
“I approach making my work intuitively, paying close attention to what I am drawn to. With this work, I thought a lot about texture, about the similarities between the bodily and the edible. While the chased texture primarily references the texture of walnut, I was also intrigued by peach pits, cherry pits, and the concept of orifices. I took a trip to the grocery store and happened upon bags of still shelled walnuts; I then took some home with me. I let the chasing become more spontaneous, mirroring the organic texture of the nuts sitting on my bench. I let the different associations guide me through the process. I’m interested in the process of taking something recognizable and playing with its formal qualities to find the point it transforms into something else. While in the studio me and other metalsmiths snacked on the walnuts. That too was a process of transformation, an investigation of the shell: taking a hammer and whacking the shell till it cracks.”