Bonnie Maygarden

BASH PIECES

ARTIST STATEMENT:

My work is informed by and reacts to a culture defined by a digital experience, yet the work’s imagery is created entirely by hand, using only paint. I seek out natural phenomena and illusions that feel familiar to an eye accustomed to imagery found on a screen. My work references recognized technology-created images, such as photography, x-rays, or photoshop filters. Through referencing the digital image as well as our natural world, I am able to make paintings that walk the line between something and nothing; that both play to our expectations of the disposable contemporary image and the valued tradition of the handmade.

BIO:

Bonnie Maygarden is a multimedia artist who received her MFA in Studio Arts from Tulane University. She attended Pratt Institute in New York, where she received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts. Her work has been featured in exhibitions both nationally and internationally in various museums, galleries and alternative venues including: Université Lumière Lyons (Lyons, France), Camden Art Center (London, England), Pratt Institute, Icosahedron Gallery (New York, NY), Callenwolde Fine Arts Center (Atlanta, GA), The Front (New Orleans, LA) and New Orleans Creative Center for the Arts.
Several notable publications have featured Maygarden’s work; including, Gambit Weekly, New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles, Arts & Antiques Magazine, NOLA DEFENDER, and INVADE NOLA. Curator and art critic Tori Bush featured Maygarden’s Master’s thesis exhibition “Hyper Real” in her May 2013 Artist Spotlight. She also received an honorable mention for her work in UNO Visual Arts Leagues Juried Exhibition in 2013 from Miranda Lash, Curator of Contemporary Art at the Speed Museum and former Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Her work was reviewed in ArtForum and Burnaway for her inclusion in “Staring at the Sun” curated by Craig Drennan. Her paintings were also featured in New American Paintings (No. 112, June/July Issue) concurrently with her premier solo exhibition at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery entitled “Desert of the Real”, as well as Issue No. 124. Her work was selected twice for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s LA Contemporary Juried Exhibition, juried by Jonathan P. Binstock of Citi Private Bank Art Advisory & Finance (2014) and Courtney J Martin Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Dia Foundation (2018) who awarded her work second place in the exhibition. Maygarden has been exhibited nationally at art fairs including: Pulse New York, Miami Project for Art Basel Miami Beach, Texas Contemporary, Art Market San Francisco, the Seattle Art Fair, and VOLTA12 in Basel, Switzerland. In 2016, her work was featured in EXCHANGE, an international exhibition at Galerie Jochen Hempel, Berlin. Maygarden was also awarded a position at the Slade for the London Summer Intensive Residency Program 2016.
Maygarden’s work appears in the collections of former LACMA curator and current Perez Art Museum Director Franklin Sirmans (Miami), private collectors Lester Marks (Houston), Myrna Kaplan (Chicago) and Susan and Ralph Brennan (New Orleans), and corporate collections of Advantage Capital Management Corporation, RPM Casting and University Medical Center (New Orleans). Maygarden has been commissioned for Hollywood feature films by several production companies including: ABC Studios, Flashfire Productions, Danni Productions, Georgia Film Fund Seven, Abby Normal Pictures, Lamb Productions, Furlined, LLC and The Goats, LLC.