Megan Wilson

Last updated
Megan Wilson
Megan Wilson, 2017.jpg
Born1969 (age 5455)
Nationality American
EducationMFA San Francisco Art Institute, BFA University of Oregon
Known for Street Art, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Public Art, Quilling
AwardsGunk Foundation, Artadia, Asian Cultural Council, The San Francisco Foundation, Ford Foundation, Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series, San Francisco Art Commission Individual Artist Award, Zellerbach Family Foundation

Megan Wilson is an American visual artist, writer, and activist based in San Francisco. Known for her large-scale installations, public projects, and street art, she incorporates a broad range of pop culture methodologies and aesthetics to address conceptual interests that include home, homelessness, social and economic justice, anti-capitalism, impermanence and generosity. Wilson's art practice is influenced by Buddhism and Vipassanā meditation, often creating work that is conceptually rooted in elements of these practices and that is intentionally ephemeral or given away.

Contents

Biography

Megan Wilson was born and raised in Montana. Her father was an oil and gas attorney and partner with the Crowley, Haughey, Hanson, Toole and Dietrich firm in Billings, Montana for over 30 years until he left in 2002 to serve as Carbon County Attorney prior to his death in 2008. Her mother was Canadian and worked as an ophthalmic technician; she died in 2015. Wilson's parents lived in San Francisco in the sixties where her father clerked for Judge James R. Browning of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Wilson moved out at the age of 16 and worked at Burger King her senior year of high school to support herself. [1] She received her BFA from the University of Oregon in 1992 and her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1997. She has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and the California College of the Arts.

Projects

Better Homes & Gardens Today

Wilson and collaborator Christopher Statton launched the public project Better Homes & Gardens Today in fall 2014, creating a limited edition of 300 pairs of hand-painted signs with the word “Home” in different languages accompanied by a flower. Wilson and Statton state the project's goals to: “1) Heighten awareness around 'home' and the realities of homelessness; 2) Cultivate a dialog within communities and amongst disparate groups – especially with those in the tech sector who are having a significant impact on housing instability in the Bay Area - about the funding and policy change that is needed to help end homelessness; and 3) To raise money to benefit the Gubbio Project, the Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco, and At The Crossroads, organizations working to address homelessness in San Francisco.” [2] "Better Homes & Gardens Today" was included in the exhibition "Street Messages" at Lazarides Gallery in London as part of the launch of the book "Street Messages, edited by Nicholas Ganz. [3]

Better Homes & Gardens Today is an extension of Wilson’s project Better Homes & Gardens from 2000 through which she gave 250 of the signs out for free to the homeless and those facing eviction in San Francisco during the area’s first Dot-com bubble. The project is included in the book San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 75 Years of Looking Forward, [4] and in the exhibition Fertile Ground at the Oakland Museum in 2014/15.

Clarion Alley Mural Project

Wilson's social practice work includes acting as a primary organizer and curator of the volunteer-run collective Clarion Alley Mural Project since 1998. She is currently the organization's Board President. As part of the project she’s painted nine murals on the alley: Home/Casa (2000), featured in the book Street Art San Francisco Mission Muralismo edited by Annice Jacoby; CAPITALISM IS OVER! If You Want It (2011), featured in the book Street Messages by Nicholas Ganz and the book Capitalism On Edge by Albena Azmenova; TAX THE RICH (2013), also featured in the books Street Messages and Capitalism On Edge, Viva La Tamale Lady (2013), a collaboration with Jet Martinez, The Wall of Shame & Solutions (2014), a collaboration with Christopher Statton and Mike Reger to call out San Francisco's city government officials on policies impacting the city's changing character, Housing Is A Human Right (2015), Stop The Corporatocracy (2015), Housing Is A Human Right (2016), featured in the book Urban Scrawl: The Written Word in Street Art by Lou Chamberlin and End Apartheid B.D.S. (2018).

In 2015 Wilson and Statton were invited to participate in the Geneng Street Art Project in Yogyakarta Indonesia, organized by Ruang Kelas SD. The theme of the project was "Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi," which translates to a critique of the unprecedented levels of development and displacement, impacting farmers and the natural resources in the areas surrounding the city of Yogyakarta. Wilson and Statton were two of the 30+ artists to paint murals on the facades of the homes in the farming community of Sewon. [5]

In 2016 Wilson designed and produced the organization's first Website, www.ClarionAlleyMuralProject.org with technical support from Web developer Ari Salomon. [6]

Wilson's mural CAPITALISM IS OVER! If You Want It was used without the artist's permission in the film About Cherry, directed by Stephen Elliott (author), starring Ashley Hinshaw and James Franco. [7]

CAPITALISM IS OVER! If You Want It

Wilson co-founded (with Amy Berk, Andy Cox, Cheryl Meeker, Eliza Barrios, and Maw Shein Win) Capitalism Is Over! If Your Want It, a collective of artists from around the world who have created artistic actions in response to the impact of capitalism on the global economy. [8]

Home 1996-2008

Inspired in part by artist David Ireland (artist), Wilson transformed her home from 2004 - 2008 into an installation that she opened up to the public in 2008 that included a series of dinner salons, curated events, and public video projections. [9]

Sama-Sama/Together

Wilson curated, directed, and raised the funds for Sama-Sama/Together, the first international mural exchange between artists in the United States (San Francisco) and Yogyakarta Indonesia. Wilson co-organized the project with Apotik Komik of Indonesia and Intersection for the Arts. Artists from San Francisco included: Aaron Noble, Alicia McCarthy, Andrew Schoultz, Carolyn Castaño, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, and Wilson. Artists from Indonesia included: Arie Dyanto, Arya Panjalu, Nano Warsono, and Samuel Indratma. The project was the catalyst for the mural and graffiti movement in Yogyakarta. The San Francisco Bay Guardian awarded the project “The Best Transnational Art Undertaking” in 2004.

Flower Interruption

In 2002/03 Wilson launched a four-part public installation series through which she filled traffic intersections in San Francisco, Tokyo, Yogyakarta and Ubud Indonesia with giant “Technicolor flowers” that passersby were invited to take for free.

In 2017 Wilson was one of six contemporary artists to be featured in the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco's exhibition "Flower Power" as part of the 50th Anniversary of the Summer of Love. Wilson created a series of new "Flower Interruptions" inside the Museum, around the grounds of the Civic Center, San Francisco, and at satellite sites throughout San Francisco, including the Haight neighborhood, the Roxie Theater, Artists' Television Access (ATA), and Clarion Alley Mural Project. [10]

Bangkit/Arise

In 2018 Wilson co-curated and co-directed Bangkit/Arise with Nano Warsono and Christopher Statton as part of Clarion Alley Mural Project and in collaboration with the Asian Art Museum (San_Francisco). Bangkit/Arise is the second international exchange and residency between artists in the United States (San Francisco) and Yogyakarta, Indonesia that Wilson has co-produced and participated in. Artists from San Francisco include Christopher Statton, Kelly Ording, Jet Martinez, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Keyvan Shovir, Jose Guerra Awe, and Wilson. Artists from Yogyakarta include: Nano Warsono, Bambang Toko, Ucup, Wedhar Riyadi, Vina Puspita, and Harind Arvati. The project was designed to address critical issues facing global and local communities, such as community development, land use, environmental crises, housing instability, and geopolitical divisions, using art as a point of departure. Community partners included the village of Panggunharjo, the Institut Seni Indonesia, AROC (Arab Resource and Organizing Center), Coalition on Homelessness, San Francisco, and SOMCAN (South of Market Community Action Network). [11]

Non-traditional mural installations

Wilson has created a series of non-traditional mural installations using textiles and quilling at venues including the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Idaho, Thirtyninehotel in Honolulu, HI, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco. She is one of the first artists to use quilling as a contemporary art form outside of its historical use as a decorative craft on paper or household objects. [12]

Megan Wilson's "Flower Interruption," Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Civic Center Commons, 2017 MeganWilson FlowerInterruption AAM.jpg
Megan Wilson's "Flower Interruption," Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Civic Center Commons, 2017

Exhibitions

Wilson's work has been exhibited at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Oakland Museum, Museum of Craft and Folk Art (S.F.), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Lazarides Gallery (London UK), Pop Up (Dortmund Germany), Southern Exposure (art space), Montalvo Art Center, Intersection for the Arts, The Luggage Store, the San Francisco Arts Commission, Sun Valley Center for the Arts (ID), Stephen Wirtz Gallery (S.F.) Tinlark Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) thirtyninehotel(Honolulu, HI), Green Papaya (Manila), Print It! (Barcelona), and LIP (Yogyakarta). She has created public projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, Civic Center, San Francisco, Tokyo, Japan; Yogyakarta & Bali, Indonesia; Jaipur, India, and Manila Philippines.

Publications

Wilson's work is included in: Are We The 99%? by Dr.Heather McKee Hurwitz, Temple University Press; Capitalism On Edge by Dr. Albena Azmenova, Columbia University Press; Urban Scrawl: The Written Word in Street Art by Lou Chamberlin; Flower Power: The Meaning of Flowers in Asian Art by Dany Chan with foreword by Jay Xu; Public Works: Artists’ Interventions 1970s – Now edited by Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo; Street Messages by Nicholas Ganz /Dokument Press; FRESH 1: Cutting Edge Illustrations in 3D and FRESH 2: Cutting Edge Illustrations in Public edited by Slanted; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 75 Years of Looking Forward, edited by Janet Bishop, Corey Keller, Sarah Roberts; Street Art San Francisco Mission Muralismo, edited by Annice Jacoby; Mural Art: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces Around the World by Kirakoss Iosifidis; Illustration: Play - Craving for the Extraordinary, Published by Victionary; Sama-Sama/Together: An International Exchange Project Between Yogyakarta and San Francisco, Published by Jam Karet; and The Gallery at Villa Montalvo: Selected Exhibitions from 1996-2000, edited by Theres Rohan.

Published writings

Wilson is also a writer and art critic. She co-founded the San Francisco-based arts Website www.stretcher.org. She was an art writer for the San Francisco Bay Guardian 2000 - 2001. Her writings have appeared in stretcher.org, afterimage, Up The Staircase Quarterly, Digitalcity, Public Art Review, Art Practical, El_Tecolote_(newspaper) ; in the book Street Art San Francisco Mission Muralismo (edited by Annice Jacoby with Foreword by Carlos Santana); and in Reimagine: The National Journal About Race, Poverty, and the Environment.

Activism

Wilson has been one of the core organizers active in the response to San Francisco's economic and technology booms 1999–present. In 2000, she co-organized the project Art Strikes Back with Lise Swenson, an 8-week series of performances along the Valencia corridor in San Francisco's Mission District. [13] In 2014 she called out University of Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism's project "Mission Loc@l" for disrespecting the wishes of artists involved with the Clarion Alley Mural Project by selecting an image of the Alley for their contest to decorate the highly contested "tech buses" that use the city's public bus stops. [14] The winning artist, Elinor Diamond, ultimately withdrew the image and submitted a new one. Wilson and artists Christopher Statton, and Mike Reger created the mural Wall of Shame & Solutions on the Clarion Alley to call out San Francisco's city government officials on policies impacting the city's changing character. [15] Wilson's essay “The Gentrification of Our Livelihoods” published on Stretcher.org in June 2014 and in Reimagine: The National Journal About Race, Poverty, and the Environment in December 2014, looks at the impact that public-private partnerships between arts organizations, developers, and funders have had on the arts and greater communities of San Francisco. [16]

Personal

Wilson lives in San Francisco with her husband and sometime collaborator Christopher Statton.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Precita Eyes</span>

Precita Eyes Muralists Association is a community-based non-profit muralist and arts education group located in the Bernal Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1977 by Susan and Luis Cervantes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mission School</span> Art movement in 1990s & 2000s, Mission District, San Francisco, California.

The Mission School is an art movement of the 1990s and 2000s, centered in the Mission District, San Francisco, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rigo 23</span>

Rigo 23 is a Portuguese-born American muralist, painter, and political artist. He is known in the San Francisco community for having painted a number of large, graphic "sign" murals including: One Tree next to the U.S. Route 101 on-ramp at 10th and Bryant Street, Innercity Home on a large public housing structure, Sky/Ground on a tall abandoned building at 3rd and Mission Street, and Extinct over a Shell gas station. He resides in San Francisco, California.

Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP) is an artists' collective in San Francisco's Mission District. CAMP is a community, a public space, and an organizing force that uses public art as a means for supporting social, economic, racial, and environmental justice messaging and storytelling. The project is currently co-directed by Megan Wilson and Christopher Statton with a board of directors that includes Wilson, Statton, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Keyvan Shovir, Ivy McClelland, Kyoko Sato, Fara Akrami, Katayoun Bahrami, and Chris Gazaleh. Clarion Alley runs one block in San Francisco's inner Mission District between 17th and 18th streets and Mission and Valencia streets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Redstone Building</span> Offices and community center in Street, San Francisco

The Redstone Building, also known as the Redstone Labor Temple, was constructed and operated by the San Francisco Labor Council Hall Associates. Initial planning started in 1910, with most construction work done during 1914. Its primary tenant was the San Francisco Labor Council, including 22 labor union offices as well as meeting halls. The building was a hub of union organizing and work activities and a "primary center for the city's historic labor community for over half a century."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Balmy Alley</span> Street in San Francisco, California

Balmy Alley is a one-block-long alley that is home to the most concentrated collection of murals in the city of San Francisco. It is located in the south central portion of the Inner Mission District between 24th Street and Garfield Square. Since 1973, most buildings on the street have been decorated with a mural.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Williams (artist)</span>

Scott Williams is an American artist best known for paintings made using stencils. He began working with stencils in the early 1980s, painting on walls, cars and the found paper and objects that accumulated in his studio. He has painted many murals in San Francisco and was dubbed by artist/writer Aaron Noble The Stencil Godfather of the Mission, where stencil graffiti is common. Williams has painted numerous murals in San Francisco, both indoors and out, including Armadillo's on Fillmore Street, Amoeba Records, Clarion Alley, Leather Tongue video, The Chamelleon bar, DNA Lounge, Burger Joint, Pedal Revolution, and The Lab. The preponderance of his work in the Mission and his ability to go back and forth from street to studio has led some people to see him as a forerunner of the Mission school, which coalesced 10 years after he began working in the neighborhood. Working outside the mainstream, Williams exhibited at alternative spaces throughout the 80s and 90s including Show and Tell Gallery, Altarpiece at the Offensive, Bibliomancy, the Adobe Bookstore and Southern Exposure. As curatorial awareness of Williams grew, he was invited to exhibit at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the San Francisco Art Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarion Alley</span>

Clarion Alley is a small street between Mission and Valencia Streets and 17th and 18th Streets in the Mission District in San Francisco, California. It is notable for the murals painted by the Clarion Alley Mural Project.

Joel Bergner is an American muralist, street artist, and educator who creates large-scale works of art with the participation of young people and communities around the world. Bergner is the co-founder and co-director of the non-profit organization Artolution, which organizes community-based public art initiatives with those who have experienced armed conflict, trauma and social marginalization. He has led such projects with incarcerated teenagers, Syrian refugees, youth from slum areas, the mentally and physically disabled, young people with substance abuse issues, orphans and street children.

Mission Muralismo was an artistic movement that brought awareness of issues as well as depicted everyday life as lived by the people in the San Francisco Mission District and other barrios around the world. The Mission was an artistic playground for muralists to speak out about injustices and social issues around their city, the country and the world. Latin American muralists voiced their cries for international attention and aimed to create awareness for the social and political problems of Latin America through the murals they painted. The Nicaraguan community especially contributed to artistic projects to shed light on the Nicaraguan Revolution and their struggles from 1979 to the 1990s.

Samuel Indratma in Central Java, Indonesia, is a community visual artist and muralist, who studied graphic art between 1990 and 1996 at the faculty of Fine Art, Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Statton</span>

Christopher Statton is an American artist and arts administrator, community activist, and philanthropist, and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Statton is best known for his role in establishing San Francisco's oldest continuously running theater, the Roxie Theater as a non-profit during his four-year tenure as executive director, 2010 – 2013. In 2013 he was awarded the Marlon Riggs Award by the San Francisco Film Critics Circle for “his significant contribution to San Francisco’s film community through the Roxie Theater over the past four years.” Ryan Coogler also received the award for his film Fruitvale Station. In 2013, San Francisco District 9 Supervisor David Campos awarded Statton with a Certificate of Honor for his “important and tireless work with the Roxie.” Statton resigned from the Roxie in 2013 due to health concerns.

Daniel Doherty is a San Franciscan street artist. He is widely known for creating graffiti murals in the Mission District. Clarion Alley Mural Project participates in spreading awareness of heroes worldwide. Every year, 200,000 people visit these murals in San Francisco's Mission District. In 2011, Doherty painted an informative mural of Mohamed Bouazizi. The mural consists of a painting of Bouazizi surrounded by an explanation of how he became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution. Laura Lengel, author of "Symbolic Interaction and New Social Media," mention the significance of Doherty's mural of Mohamed Bouazizi. They describe Doherty's work of art as an "alternative offline media form." Doherty's mural educated each visitor about this Tunisian martyr while promoting local art, helping spread Bouazizi's actions worldwide. Doherty has created several murals that consist of a local homeless man. These images touch on social problems. In one of them titles "Everything Must Go!" a bookstore filled with books about San Francisco is going out of business. He has also captured a famous location in San Francisco, Dolores Park, where he used pointillism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shaghayegh Cyrous</span> American artist and curator

Shaghayegh Cyrous (Persian: شقایق سیروس; is an American artist and curator based in Los Angeles. Her interactive time-based investigations, participatory projects, and video installations have been said to "create a poetic space for human connections."

Keyvan Heydari-Shovir, also known as CK1, is an Iranian-born contemporary artist, and street artist. His work combines Iranian traditional culture with contemporary pop culture, and he is a pioneer of Iranian graffiti art. He lives in Los Angeles, and previously lived in San Francisco and Tehran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Cervantes</span> American artist

Susan Kelk Cervantes is an American artist who has been at the epicenter of the San Francisco mural movement and the co-founder and executive director of the community-based non-profit, Precita Eyes Muralists.

Elba Rivera is a Salvadorian-born artist who concentrates on realism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. Rivera focuses on uncovering subjects related with human's dismissal for nature with surrealist and abstract expressionist techniques. She is best known for her participation in San Francisco community mural art movements and for the art piece, Family Expectations, which depicts an intricate composition of several women whose appearances indicates family union.

Sirron Norris is an American illustrator, muralist, and arts educator. He is known for his work on the FOX animated television show Bob's Burgers and for numerous cartoon-style public murals, including ones at Balmy Alley, Clarion Alley, and Mission Dolores Park, and galleries around San Francisco. His murals often include political messages, local themes, and his signature blue bear. He has worked with several local non-profits, including SPUR and El Tecolote.

Irene Peréz is a muralist known for her membership in the Latina muralist group, Las Mujeres Muralistas and her contributions to the group mural Maestrapeace, at the Woman's Building in San Francisco, California.

The Luggage Store Gallery, also known as 509 Cultural Center, is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary arts organization founded in 1987, and has two venues located in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The organization has sponsored many local artists, including those that are considered to be part of the Mission School, and of skateboard or street art culture.

References

  1. Bio
  2. Storefront Home, Artists Explore Homelessness
  3. "Street talk: Graffiti slogans around the world – in pictures". The Guardian. June 2015.
  4. San Francisco Museum Of Modern Art 75 Years of Looking Forward edited by Janet Bishop, Corey Keller, and Sarah Roberts, Published December 2009, ISBN   978-0-918471-83-3; page 346, plate 300
  5. al-Hakimi, Jauhar (27 November 2015). "Festival Geneng Street Art Project #3: Gemah Ripah Loh Jinawi". Satu Harapan.
  6. Hotchkiss, Sarah (15 June 2016). "Clarion Alley Mural Project's Decades of Dissident Artwork Now Online". KQED.
  7. Cherry - Clarion Alley Mural Project
  8. Winter, Rhonda (27 September 2011). "Capitalism is Over and "Living Without Money"". EcoLocalizer. Archived from the original on 25 March 2016.
  9. Memoriam: David Ireland 1930 – 2009
  10. "SF painter's flowery tribute to Summer of Love". 24 May 2017.
  11. "Bangkit/Arise San Francisco: Gotong Royong!". 15 January 2019.
  12. Artist puts out the welcome mat
  13. Artistic Statement In Mission / Protests poke fun at the new economy
  14. Mission Local Announces Tech Bus Design Contest Winner
  15. Housing round-up: LGBT tenants, a singing protest, and a very sad mural
  16. Gentrification of Our Livelihoods: Everything Must Go