Together

Megan Lewis (b. 1989) is a figurative multidisciplinary artist, creating paintings and murals that tell stories with a critical view on contemporary cultural issues. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland and studied at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. She now lives and works in Baltimore city. She is represented by Galerie Myrtis, and for the last several years, her works on canvas focus on portraits depicting Black men and women. Through her portraits, Baltimore-based artist Megan Lewis engages in discourse about the Black body in a historical and cultural context, exploring self image, the meaning of beauty, and her own joys and angers within her experiences as a Black woman. She also uses her artistic practice as a way to be critical of society’s historically problematic attitudes towards marginalized identities by intentionally untangling her imagination from Americanized history, art, and standards. A significant part of her creative process is allowing her emotions to play out across the canvas through her expressionistic brush strokes. Together shows a young Black woman looking directly at the viewer and standing in a traditional pose similar to those which appear in traditional portraiture. Lewis takes this conventional form and paints an imagined model to represent marginalized groups of people typically excluded from such images, endowing them with the same sense of prestige and value.

Megan Lewis

2021