Undercurrent is pleased to present Fully Furnished, a solo show of large wall pieces and works on paper by Megan Stroech. Stroech’s skillful integration of printmaking on found fabrics and felts contrasted against hand-painted passages on canvas explore the crosshairs of craft and luxury, realness and artificiality, and our relationship to domestic space.
The meaning of “home” has evolved with the pandemic, taking on both a versatility and irony; abject of privacy, new negotiations of space and safety, the public and private compounded. This physical verisimilitude impacts our daily movements, altering our experiences and therefore our future memories of home. In Stroech’s work, mundane elements that unconsciously influence our perception of our space collide: the direction of fiber in a carpet, the reflection in a polished surface, or the coffee ring stain lassoing the grain of wood on a table. From an illogical convergence of profile and aerial views, these fragments are sandwiched to implode larger systems of patriarchy, consumerism, and class.
Stroech injects feminine stereotypes into her work, empowering their function. Petals, scallops, and curves dominate Well Traveled and Woven, both works on paper, offsetting the plaid and checkered structures below. In Hat Trick, the decorative element of a bow is magnified to frame the work and transmute adornment to structure and utility through use of scale. Literally and metaphorically tying everything together, Hat Trick teeters on a purple, plastic mylar pedestal/column/cake-plate, incorporating the gallery floor in order to question space, representation, and craft clichés.
Uniquely straddling mixed media, Stroech defies the hierarchy of high-brow fine art materials versus low-brow art-and-craft supplies. Throughout much of the 20th century and up through today, modern art history has turned “craft” into a pejorative term associated with femininity, polarizing gender and practice, and creating a misogynistic dichotomy which Stroech consciously engages and amplifies. Split Decision, for instance, integrates hand-silkscreened elements on felt, store bought gingham, discarded fabrics from fashion students, and painting. It’s soft and malleable fringe and pleat shapes coalesce to bandage broken railings and fragmented ladders, while works on paper such as Accordion and Fat Column weave lattices and checkers to disrupt grid systems and form alternate pathways.
Stroech works with a knowledge of hierarchal and patriarchal paradigms, pushing the boundaries of her materials and methods to resist them. Her intentional integration of mis-registration is an ironic nod to deskilling printmaking— especially alongside her use of controlled brush strokes— while combining hand-printed and mass-produced patterns push authenticity, luxury, and accessibility into dialogue. The results are charmingly performative, a presentation that reconstitutes a fully-furnished experience where we have everything we could ever need within the home to precarious excess.
