Meg Walters is an emerging artist who uses painting as a tool to explore her identity and reality. Incorporating themes of memory, escapism and psychological narratives into her work, her paintings are alive with stories and mysticism. She originally hails from the small sub-tropical island of Bermuda in the Atlantic Ocean, studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design in London before making her way to Australia where completed a BA of Illustration at Newcastle University. After a decade working in the music industry in Sydney, Walters moved to Northern NSW where she completed a three-year Visual Arts Course at Byron School of Art. She has recently returned to Newcastle where she lives in a 60’s beach house with a studio on the property.
Achieving sold out solo exhibitions in Bermuda, Sydney and Melbourne Meg has exhibited in group shows in Berlin, Bermuda, Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Byron Bay. Her paintings are held in private collections throughout Australia and Europe.
Inertia is the sudden change in motion in our day to day lives. When the momentum which propels us forward suddenly ceases to exist, we’re left with an inexplicable void. An abyss between movement and stillness which is rife with vulnerability and tenderness. The tension between push and pull – this is the space from which this body of work originates. “Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” – Henry David Thoreau
Walters focused on the landscape of Bald Rock in Western NSW for this series; its’ atmosphere strangely foreshadowed her own mood that was to eventuate in 2021 – that of longing and stillness. The giant monolithic rock emerges out of the flatness of the land like an island of colour and shape against the charred forest below. The landscape is heavy with burned tree trunks and new growth, a perfect mixture of death and birth, light and hope, against a backdrop of destruction. This place spoke to Walters of isolation and renewal, motifs that would inform her painting in an instinctually lyrical way.
