Meghan Marie Malar
Meghan Marie Malar’s work explores the commodification of objects and the artistic self, how commercial space exists in public memory and the archive, and how we assign value to reproducible images. It often takes the form of fictional tales, which exist in an exaggerated but reality-adjacent world governed by a marriage of social and financial capital, where image is the top currency, and false idols abound. Cultural icons and mass-produced luxury goods preside over spaces in which they are vested with fragile but feverish emotional and spiritual significance. Her pieces exhibit a tension between material realities and spiritual or affective desires, exploring how a resulting sense of alienation shapes modern identities.