Reclaiming Myself
by Megan Williams.
"Reclamation is defined as a process of recovery, or returning to a rightful course after rescuing from error. My body of work as an analog collage artist is the product of continual reclamation processes, in both a material and metaphysical sense. Through these processes, I’ve created seamless compositions from found and discarded objects that capture my own journey to connect more deeply with my queer identity. I frequently take images from highly sexualized contexts meant for the male gaze and resituate them in landscapes of beauty in the more-than-human world. In my work, I emphasize that there is beauty in what we as a society physically and mentally discard or devalue. This includes the diversion from recognizing and celebrating sex and sexuality, facets of the human experience that are very much part of the natural world. I ask – how can we remove the shame in witnessing these sexual images? My art is a reclamation of all parts of myself, my whole self as a bisexual woman."
