The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Megan Dardis
Artist Megan Dardis ArtBrecksville, Ohio Ohio 44141 United StatesWork 2535 Scranton Rd
Cleveland Ohio 44113 United StatesHome Ohio 44141 United States Cell Phone: 3305543886 Website: Megandardisart.com
Bio
Megan Dardis is an abstract artist working in Cleveland, Ohio. Dardis’ paintings depict explosive events and waves of movement and motion, in which she combines geometric and linear elements with painterly brushstrokes in vibrant color palettes. In Dardis’ work emotions are transformed into pigment and gesture capturing the in-between transient states of being. Layers of paint and mark are built up, covered up, poured over, scraped off, breaking down and regenerating all at the same time. The layers of applications of paint tell the story of her physical process and emotional experience with painting. This personal process of painting takes shape as unknowable landscapes that are marked with the residue of experience and emotion. Dardis’ work grabs ahold of the intangible and fleeting moments and emotions of the human experience, capturing them in their constant transformation, freezing them forever into a state of always becoming.
Dardis has participated in multiple group and solo shows, in the Cleveland and Akron areas of Ohio. Her work can also been seen at her studio and gallery, MDA Studio in Tremont, Ohio. Dardis has also painted a large-scale outdoor mural as part of a community centered project that she organized and executed, funded by a grant from The Fenn Foundation. Dardis’ work has been featured in The CAN Journal, as well as cleveland.com. Dardis has a Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts from The Cleveland Institute of Art.
Artist Statement
Growth is not a streamlined event, beautifully arching into perfection; it’s messy, haphazard, it ebbs and flows. It is in the process of growth and transformation in which life is fully experienced. My work is a reflection of that process; the cycles of chaos, trauma, recovery, and restructuring from within the thick of it. My paintings depict explosive events and waves of movement and motion, in which I combine geometric and linear elements with painterly brushstrokes in vibrant color palettes.
In my paintings emotions are transformed into pigment and gesture capturing the in-between transient states of being just after a moment of emotional impact. Freezing the momentum and movement of invisible forces of energy and emotion onto the canvas. The particles and debris of experience frozen in a liminal place, caught in a phase of always becoming.
Layers of paint and mark are built up, covered up, poured over, scraped off, breaking down and regenerating all at the same time. The layers of application of paint tell the story of my physical process and emotional experience with painting. This personal process of painting takes shape as unknowable landscapes that are marked with the residue of experience and emotion. The combination of linear and geometrical marks and shapes alongside gestural and painterly brushstrokes creates a visual language allowing expression of emotions that we don’t have words to describe, and provides an conduit for the viewers own emotional interpretation.