Winter can be as powerful as it is inevitable, and the latest exhibition at gallery La Petite Mort aims to expose how people are affected and conquered by their environment.
Winter Garden, artist Meaghan Haughian’s latest collection, focuses on the universal truths of life, death, and growth.
“We all experience isolation, especially during winter . . . we are all connected but we experience those things alone,” Haughian said, adding that such an environment leads us inward, alone with our thoughts.
Most of the mixed media pieces in Winter Garden feature collages with photographs of Haughian’s grandmother, who has an indisputable physical resemblance to Haughian.
“She looks so much like her grandmother, but her work is universal,” artist and friend Sharon VanStarkenburg said.
According to Haughian, some people see her work as autobiographical, a label she does not agree with.
“My work is not specifically autobiographical, it’s human experience. It connects to emotions and experiences we all have,” Haughian said. Her collages explore both our experiences as human beings who live, love, and disintegrate. “The entire life cycle,” she said.
Haughian uses her own experiences to reveal universal emotions.
“Meagan is very honest and bold. She has no fear in revealing inner secrets in her work,” said gallery owner Guy Bérubé said.
What drives Bérubé to feature Haughian in his gallery without hesitation is her honesty.
“She’s the real thing, she’s as real as it gets,” Bérubé said.
He said that Haughian “gets out of her comfort zone every time I show her.”
Besides honesty, another aspect that stands out about Haughian’s work is a sense of continuity and progress.
Winter Garden is the next chapter of a story that started with her previous collection Practice Saying Goodbye, inspired by the death of a close family friend, which focused on flowers in cemeteries.
“I’ve seen Meaghan’s work evolve over the years and there’s a common theme in her work,” VanStarkenburg said.
“There’s a sense of memory, family, loss and grief,” VanStarkenburg said.
“But although her work seemed more personal before, this collection seems less personal, it is more of a continuous narrative.”
Such continuity, according to Bérubé, is uncommon in the art business.
“Some artists will get really thematic about their work and work at it and then finish it and let it go,” Bérubé said.
He said most artists deal with it “like relationships, you meet someone, you bang them, and you let them go.”
“[Haughian] didn’t quite let go of the idea she was working on from The Lois Diaries [her June 2007 exhibition at La Petite Mort], you don’t see that often,” Bérubé said.
Even though Haughian’s work revolves around cold weather, isolation, and death, the purpose of her art is to find a bright side.
“Sure I’m dealing with death, but my work is hopeful. There’s hope and beauty in sad experiences, but we all go through them so we have to find something positive in the inevitable,” Haughian said.
Haughian’s Winter Garden is running at La Petite Mort for the month of March.
