MEGAN NUGROHO

These works search for a conduit, through the body, to what William James called the more. A more not estranged from this world, a separate supernatural entity, but embedded in the daily, the domestic, and our tender corporeal forms. A more with traces of fairy tale enchantment, the lingering soul and the unconscious as a palace in time. A new, and much anticipated theology is developing, image by image, fueled not by traditional religious precepts, but rituals lost and found, nature and the movement of energy. Unbracketed life force, urgent as the thrust of green stems in spring, whirling in the spiraling mind, but manifest too in quiet, in stillness, in absence. To go inside is to enter a wilderness. We know this; but we forget. Life at its most elemental; the root seeking in the dark earth. Mundane yet mythic, the glow of veins that are also vines, a son’s careful attention to the residue of maternal spirit, and a partner’s visual message to a lover, that while the struggle is real, the doorway is open, the doorway is not only open, it is also spewing light.

Written by Darcey Steinke

Megan Nugroho’s work seeks, by way of spiritual vegetal forms, to reconcile the beliefs of the east and the west. Growing up in Indonesia, nature was not domesticated, but wild, even dangerous as is her family’s belief system which is rooted in the supernatural. Nugroho’s work struggles for spiritual release from traditional religious systems and an interest in a relationship with an unmediated life force. This force grows, infects and strains to connect. Her color palette of browns and greens replicates the foliage and motifs of central Java where her family is from. These green and red vines, white roots and gesturing branches are not the usual peaceful and soothing natured visuals of the wellness culture of this time. Instead this work questions the boundaries of the body, and the false idea of separateness. Green hands and feet hint at veritas, an ever-greening, that Nugroho creates with the medium of colored pencils and paper. Using this simple medium, she evokes the movement of the green fuse, the liminal thrust of life.

Written by Darcey Steinke