Meg Brown Payson received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting at Boston University School for the Arts and her Master of Fine Arts in Visual Art at Vermont College of the Union Institute and University. She most recently exhibited at the DeCordova Museum outside Boston in an acclaimed show titled “Big Bang! Abstract Art for the 21st Century.” She has also exhibited at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine and the Hillwood Art Museum in Brookville, NY. She currently teaches at Maine College of Art.Payson’s recent work features acrylic on panel at both large and small scales. She creates each piece through an additive and subtractive process where both the viscosity of the applied paint as well as the previously painted surface are manipulated to reveal treasured moments in time. Payson creates visual complexity as a parallel to our own infinitely layered existence. At the same time, she balances her palette and her forms to capture the collective or unifying aspects of understanding. She also masterfully embeds the line as a representation of life’s opposing forces. Payson is eager to express the mystical connections we have with the wild of nature and she invites us to fall into her paintings, swim around, and explore the amorphous world between the known and the unknown.

Payson views the world as a living body and is tantalized by the translation of common experience into individual perception. Her work is luminous and enveloping. Forms evolve and dissolve, commingle and pull-apart, bubble and pop, in a shared transitory existence. Payson’s exquisite sense of composition highlights a key component of her work, which is to seek “the rightness of the fit.” This, of course, is a fundamental goal of many artists, but with Payson’s work, it is a natural extension of her desire to find moments of order within that which is fluid and dynamic.

commissioned & site specific works are available from each artist; please call the gallery for details.

education

Vermont College of the Union Institute and University, MFA, Montpelier, Vermont
Boston University School for the Arts, BFA, Boston, Massachusetts

solo exhibitions

2010    Hydrostatic Pressure, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010    Paper Works, Walker Contemporary, Boston, Massachusetts
2009    Horizon, Walker Contemporary, Boston, Massachusetts
2008    Liquid Space, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2007    Prints from Anderson Ranch, June Fitzpatrick Gallery, Portland, Maine
2004    Felt, Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon College, Beverly, Massachusetts
2004    To Sing the World, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine
2002    To Sing the World, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland, Maine
2001    Dana Hall School, Wellesley, Massachusetts
1989-   Judith Leighton Gallery, Blue Hill, Maine
1997

group exhibitions

2012     Navigating Currents Exchange Portfolio, invitational, 2012 Southern Graphics Council Conference, Printed at Pickwick Independent Press, New Orleans, Louisiana
2011     Contemporaries: Artists of La Napoule Art Foundation, Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Ogunquit, Maine
2011     Synesthesia, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010     The Ties That Bind, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010     Mirare, ChapelArtCenter, St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire
2010    Art Hamptons, with eo art lab, Bridgehampton, New York
2010    Mirare, Chapel Art Center, St. Anselm College, Manchester, New Hampshire
2010    Shared Response, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2010    Give & Take, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2009    Push & Pull, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2009    Archeology Above Ground, Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine Colllege of Art, Portland, Maine
2009    Abstract New England: Six Perspectives, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor, Maine.
2009    Art Hamptons, with eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2009    In the Middle, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Red Dot Miami, with eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Group Experiment, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Group Dynamics, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Group Therapy, eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2008    Red Dot New York, with eo art lab, Chester, Connecticut
2007    Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts
2007    2007 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine
2007    Graphite, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine
2006    Biennial Juried Exhibition, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine
2006    Cooler Gallery, White River Junction, Vermont
2006    Abstraction, The Clown, Portland, Maine
2005    Accord VI, George Marshall Store Gallery, York, Maine
2005    Water, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine
2004    A Natural Response: Artists from the Boston Drawing Project at Bernard Toale Gallery, Peterborough, New Hampshire
2003    Accord IV, George Marshall Store Gallery, York, Maine
2003    Drawing, Contemporary Artist’s Center, North Adams, Massachusetts
2003    Abstract Landscape, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, Maine
2003-    Icons and Altars, New Art Center, Newton, Massachusetts
2006
2002    9/11: Prelude to an Apocalypse, Art Gallery at University of New England, Portland, Maine
2001    Beyond Our Vision, Bemidji Community Art Center, Bemidji, Minnesota
2001    A Sense of Place, The Chewonki Foundation, Wiscasset, Maine
2000    Land, Sea, Sky, Artworks at Dover Street, New Bedford, Massachusetts
2000    Winter, O’Farrell Gallery, Brunswick, Maine
2000    Unbridled Eclecticism: Works from the Collection of Woody Dana, Art Gallery at University of New England, Portland, Maine
1999    Inner Landscapes, Montserrat College of Art Gallery, Beverly, Massachusetts
1998    Celebrating Diversity, Hillwood Art Museum, Brookville, New York
1998    Sanctuary, Maine Audubon Center, Falmouth, Maine
1998    20th Annual Juried Exhibition, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, Maine
1997    Summer Salon ’97, Robert Clements Gallery, Portland, Maine
1997    Maine House, Nagoya, Japan
1997

collections

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park
Neiman Marcus
L.L. Bean
Marriott Hotels
AstraZeneca
Hotel Bel Air
Numerous private collections

grants/awards/residencies

2009    artist residency, Chateau de La Napoule, Mandelieu-La Napoule, France
2009    artist-in-residence, Monte Azul, Costa Rica
2008     one month residency, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado
2007     winter residency, Anderson Ranch Art Center, Snowmass Village, Colorado
2004     Good Ideas Grant, Maine Arts Commission
2002     MECA Faculty Development Grant, Santa Fe Art Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico
1999     Residency, fellowship award, Vermont Studio Center, Johnston, Vermont
1995     Residency, commendation award, Contemporary Artists Center, North Adams, Massachusetts

publications & reviews

100 Artists of New England, Schiffer Books
Beem, Edgar Allen, Chromatic Cosmology in Connecticut: Meg Brown Payson at eo art lab, Yankee, September 2010
Archaeology Above Ground, Catalog, ICA, Portland, Maine
Nature Genetics, cover art,  Volume 41, Number 11, November 2009
Kady, Daniel, In the Realm of Ideals: Mirare at Saint Anselm, art review, Edgar, Maine Sunday Telegram, November 29, 2009
Beem, Edgar Allen, Sacred and Profane Portsmouth: Who knew there was a Portsmouth Museum of
Fine Art, Yankee Magazine Online, February 4, 2010.
Beem, Edgar Allen, Biennial: Photography is the New Painting. The Forecaster, April 12, 2007.
Capasso, Nicholas. Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century, DeCordova Museum and
Sculpture Park, 2007.
Cook, Greg, Ah, Painting! At the DeCordova, Abstraction is New Again, The Boston Phoenix,
January 24, 2007.
Gold, Donna, Balancing Acts by Eight Maine Women, Maine Times, September 25, 1997.
Gold, Donna, Artists are All Women, But Color’s the Key to the Show, Maine Sunday Telegram,
June 7, 1992.
Gray, Katie, Polyptyphs and Polymorphism on First Friday, Scholar of the Dark Armchair,
gratiek.blogspot.com, June 2. 2007,
Hudson, Sharon, Art is Free, Chug Magazine, May 2, 1995.
Isaacson, Philip, Payson’s Narratives of the Landscape Burst Through Geometrics, Maine Sunday Telegram, April 3, 1994.
Johnson, Ken, Seeing a Pattern: From Cosmology to Geology, Science Inspires Abstract Art at
DeCordova, Boston Globe, February 2, 2007.
Kany, Daniel, Pleasingly Blurring the Line Between Fine Art and Craft, Maine Sunday Telegram,
November 29, 2009.
Larmon, Annie, Hot for Teacher: Meca Faculty Re-imagine the Natural World and Play with Nostalgia,The Portland Phoenix, December 2, 2009.
McAvoy, Suzette, Created Worlds: Sara Crisp, Meg Brown Payson & Penelope Jones, Maine Home +Design, April 2010.
McWilliams, Margo, Meg Brown Payson Gets Taken Over by the Process of Painting, Casco Bay
Weekly, October 17, 1991.
Nash, Matthew, 2007 Biennial @ the Portland Museum of Art, Big RED and Shiny, April 23, 2007.
Nature and Genetics, Magazine Cover. Volume 41, Number 11, November 2009.
Portland Museum of Art Biennial Exhibition Catalog, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, 2007.
Portland Museum of Art 2007 Biennial pod cast. www.portlandmuseum.org/Content/2004.shtml
Tate, Haines Sprunt, Leighton Gallery Honors the Imagination’s Whim, Maine Times, June, 1995.
Whitman, Arthur, Big Bang! Abstract Painting for the 21st Century @ the DeCordova, Big RED & Shiny, April 8, 2007