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Fantastische Welten | Meghan Boody im Interview

Michelle van der Veen und Künstlerin Meghan Boody beim Interview über den frisch gedruckten Buchseiten | Foto: Polina Bazir
Michelle van der Veen und Künstlerin Meghan Boody beim Interview über den frisch gedruckten Buchseiten | Foto: Polina Bazir

Michelle van der Veen und Künstlerin Meghan Boody beim Interview über den frisch gedruckten Buchseiten | Foto: Polina Bazir

“We are Gods in the Chrysalis” is the title of your new book. What does the “Chrysalis” represents? 
I have always been interested in transformation and for me, a chrysalis, or cocoon, is the ultimate symbol of this process. How human beings change and what this looks like up close is the basic premise of all of my picture stories. Change can be gruesome and difficult and we usually don’t do it unless we have to. We often wait for some kind of crisis to happen that gives us no choice, but there is an amazing upside of beauty and transcendence. I will take take the life of a butterfly over a worm any day! I believe that if I study and document this radical process of shape shifting in my own special way, I’ll learn how to do it.

The cover of your book reminds me of the story about Alice behind the looking glass. What role do fairy tales play in your work?
As a child I was obsessed with fairy tales. They made me feel that anything was possible. That I had hidden special powers ready to be untapped and that there were invisible beings keeping watch over me, ready to help. I guess I still feel this way! My goal is to transmit this feeling of magic and possibility to the viewer.
Also, fairy tales are usually the retelling of even older stories, descendents of ancient myth and oral ancestral tales. These stories are part of our heritage as creatures on this planet and serve as meaningful guides, pointing us in the direction of what truely matters, helping us navigate treacherous terrain. Whether it be Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel or Bluebeard, they are about the basic human condition and universal stiving for love, success, family and the one big enchilada: finding home. I weave my personal narrative into these tales and end up with my own brew of myth with various alter egos and avatars in the starring roles. These stories guide me in my life, helping me focus on what I want to achieve. Because I am using universal themes, I hope others can relate.

There is a tarot set included in your book. You created it with images of your work. What meaning does it have? 
Actually, my deck of cards is an oracle deck which is different from a Tarot deck. The Tarot follows a set system of suits and court cards, similar to common playing cards (which are in fact descendants of the Tarot.) Like the Tarot, oracle cards are compilations of allegories of human experience but there are no set rules. You are pretty much free to come up with your own, which is what I did. These cards were designed to be used for divination. Every card relates to a different aspect of life and if picked during a reading, will offer important information and guidance!

You are a very spiritual artist. At the same time you live in the center of New York byword the city that never sleeps, is there any spirituality in New York?
There is every scene and every brand of spirituality you can imagine in New York. I think all the hustle and bustle of the city creates a diehard need for such centering practices and attitudes. Religion is definitely on the way out, but spirituality is on the way in!

You also express your images in sculptures. How do your sculptures and photos influence each other?
Often, an idea that I’m working on in one medium, crops up in another. This is not at all intentional but I now realize is unavoidable. I think us artists are destined to tell the same story over and over again. It distills over time and the characters change and I might feel that this time I’m really doing something different, but at the core, it’s the same! Like with my ongoing PsycheSuperStar story cycle. It’s a coming of age tale about a little girl who gets caught in various predicaments underground. I took a break from the series to make The Mice and Me, which is a life sized figure of a young girl lying in a steel vitrine with live mice running around inside. I had envisioned the mice would gradually gnaw away at her features and that the piece would be about aging and the passage of time. In the end I couldn’t bear to see her being defaced, so I now only put the mice in her enclosure for special occasions. So she has become a monument to childhood – and most specifically, Psyche. For she happens to be a dead ringer for her, (which is kind of crazy as I didn’t plan it) and is engaged in her own particular predicament.
I love working with intricate images and weaving together a gazillion layers in Photoshop but sometimes the dryness of working on a computer gets to me. And then making sculpture and working with paints, clay and objects comes as a release. I don’t think I would have such a pent up desire to play with little figurines and create scenes if it wasn’t for all those long hours in front of the screen. It almost feels like the computer work is an adult activitity and that I get to revert to more childlike play with the sculptures.

There a many narratives and stories in your work. Do you already have them in mind while doing a series or does it appear during the process of making?
Both. These days, I have a general idea for a storyline and will write out a list of shots before a shoot. Then, one of my models will do something interesting on set and that will completely change the narrative. I usually don’t reallize this until after the shoot, when I’m sifting throught the images. Often that doesn’t mean I have to rewrite the story. I just add on another narrative tangent! That’s why some of my stories have a LOT of conflicting versions, flash forwards and possible endings.

Interview by Michelle van der Veen.

 

Boody

Publikation: We are Gods in the Chrysalis, August 2015.
herausgegeben von Meghan Boody,
mit Texten von Sue Scott und Katie Riophe.
Gestaltung: Laurie Dolphin, New York

ISBN:978-3-7356-0100-1

One thought on “Fantastische Welten | Meghan Boody im Interview”
  1. […] Buchparty wie im Märchen und das mitten in New York. Was Meghan Boody bewegt, hat sie im Interview mit uns […]

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