Megan Fitzgerald

Hailing from Montreal, Quebec, Megan Fitzgerald has travelled extensively, creating art, participating in artist residencies and teaching around the world. Now, she’s settled in Prince Edward County, and busy as ever!

Since moving to The County, Megan has taught several landscape painting classes for children and adults at the County Arts Lab, and recently completed an artist residency at the Drake Devonshire in Wellington as part of the Drake Devonshire x County Arts Artist Residency Program. Coming up in March, she has a solo exhibition in the Barlow Room at The Royal Hotel. Where Field Meets Sky will be open weekends throughout the month of March.

Read on to learn more about her upcoming exhibition, historical art influences, and her favourite places to create art.

Please describe your artistic practice in a sentence or two:

My mixed media practice looks at themes of journey, mapping histories, and encountering magic. I collaborate with places and materials encountered along walks to create gestural drawings, paintings, and naturally dyed textiles; often combining these into abstract assemblages.

Tell us about any artistic projects you have going on this upcoming month that you’d like people to know about:

This month, I have a solo exhibition at the Barlow Room, the Royal Hotel’s on site gallery. The show will feature a series of small and large scale abstract paintings collaged with naturally dyed textiles. For this series, I created gestural sketches on my daily walks along Salmon Point Road. As the leaves started to drop in Fall, I became really interested in the negative forms that are created by branches overlapping. I love the tangle of stems, leaves, and grasses and then suddenly, the still expanse of flat sky seen in between. The opening for the show is March 2 from 4-6 PM. All are welcome!

Tell us about another artist’s artwork/artistic project you’ve experienced recently that made an impact on you, and why/how?

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Seville, Spain. I visited the Royal Alcazar, an historic palace begun in the 10th century with centuries of development up until the 14th century. I was absolutely amazed by the layered histories of the palace and also, the tile work, which it is known for. In my paintings, I try to use colour and motif to express the feeling of a place and maybe begin to express its complex histories. The Alcazar was so inspiring to me because it was 500 years of histories all visible in the layering of materials. Additionally, there is always something very inspiring about being outside of one’s usual environment and inundated with new smells, colours, textures. It reminds me to see the world with curiosity and wonder.

Which tools and/or resources have helped you the most in your artistic career? These can be either physical or intellectual in nature.

Definitely, walking. All of my ideas are shaped and defined during a long walk. Also, having a community of people to talk to about ideas. I am very lucky to come from a family of artists and always have someone to call and ask for feedback on a new painting or just sit and talk over a meal about artistic ideas.

Where is your favourite place to work on your art?

I like creating art in different locations for the contrast it provides. My three favourite places are my home studio (where I have all the materials ready to go and can work on larger scale pieces), a busy cafe or bar (I like to bring my sketchbook to busy places, I am comforted by the noise of people talking and laughing), and on a hiking trail (I often bring a small painting set up to create quick plein-air paintings while on a hike).