About the Artist
Meghan DeRoma (b. Chicago, IL, US) is a visual artist working in collage, painting, sculpture, and storytelling. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
DeRoma received her BFA in Sculpture and Photography, with a Minor in Psychology, from Miami University, OH, in 2000. After evolving through a career in creative direction for brands, she founded a sustainable toy company in 2016 and began to write and illustrate children's books. It was a return to art. She has done continuing education coursework in the arts at the Art Institute of Chicago and Columbia University, Chicago, depth psychology research through Animas Valley Institute and the CJ Jung Institute of Los Angeles, and creative writing at Harvard University.
DeRoma is a founder of the Dorado 806 Art Collective in Santa Monica, CA, as an artist and curator. She has shown her work in the gallery in a series of shows since 2022, including a solo show in September 2023, and has curated group shows featuring over 100 local and emerging artists. Her work has been shown at Dorado 806, Tryst 2023, Nomad II 2023, the Women United Art Magazine (cover artist), The Other Art Fair, the Venice Art Walk, Casa LA Wine + Art, a private show at CHTV curated by Yiwei Lu, and the Society of Illustrators Museum in New York. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Forbes, Booooooom, Design Sponge, and Communication Arts.
Artist Statement
Blurring the lines between narrative, representation, and abstraction, I focus on the archetypal symbols and themes of the intricacy and nuance of human relationship—our relationship to Self, other humans, the “other”, (wo)man’s relationship with nature, and our inherent wildness. Overlaying themes include curiosity, gestural flow, and a sly-smile approach to obscured symbolism and playful mixed metaphor.
My process involves discovery and articulation, using my hands and organic materials, many of which have an inherent history to them, to imply a sense of ethereal nostalgia, familiarity, and memory’s edge. I use found and discarded ephemera such as vintage paper or paper trimmings, bits of fabric or nature, sometimes from my past and sometimes from the histories of others. I work with it—cutting, tearing, painting, gluing, folding, crushing, molding—to transform it into something new that retains the original spirit or essence, often surfacing archetypal themes in the process, both intentionally and accidentally.
