BIO

Megan Bonke is a Chicago based artist. She graduated in 2012 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She also studied at The International School of Painting, Drawing, and Sculpture in Umbria in 2012; Eugene O’Neil Puppetry Conference in 2011; and Ox Bow School of Art and Artist Residency in 2010. Bonke is currently pursuing a Masters in Art in Art Therapy with an emphasis in Counseling at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, while maintaining her personal practice at her studio located in Clock Tower Industrial Park.

Prior, Bonke spent her time exploring the many facets of the commercial fine art world. From 2017 to 2020, Bonke worked as the studio manger to artist René Romero Schuler. In December of 2015, Bonke managed Gallery H, a pop-up gallery as an extension of Thresholds, a NFP organization that helps to improve the quality of life through therapy, residencies, and job placement for the severely mentally ill throughout the Chicago land area. She interned and wrote for Chicago Gallery News magazine from 2013 to 2014. During this time, she also worked with Amuse Arts, a company of artists that creates interactive art making experiences.

ARTIST Statement

I am a representational painter continually reexamining my ability to see. I believe in traditionally beautiful and harmonic color compositions. There are two practices: drawing from life and photo based. I create work from life that references the process of the Impressionists: immediate visual translation. I borrow images from candid photographs from American middle class figures, usually parent and child, that often convey nostalgia. In this work my interests lie within the translation of a photograph to painting through the control of cropping, color, and material manipulation.

But here is my point: when the artist gets down to the act of creating, there is an intimate, uninhibited experience. I believe in struggle, practice, and learning when approaching art; and in the playfulness and sensuality of creating art.  When I produce a painting, I begin a nurturing relationship with the materials.

CONTACT  MEGANBONKE@GMAIL.COM