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Photo by Roxana Kadyrova

I create paintings, architectural sculptures, masks and sounds, exploring themes of magic and connection to the non- and more-than human world—particularly birds.

My work is deeply intuitive and collaborative. As I ask questions about where my body ends and the world begins, I understand myself as part of a vast web of beings, often through a character I call the Birdwoman. 

The architectures and sculptures I create—nests, domes, and scaffolds—feel alive and porous, connected and entangled with their surroundings.

In this time of ecological and spiritual loss, I hope my artwork and designs can offer a space for reimagining, dreaming of new perspectives and alternative ways of living, echoing Cherríe Moraga’s words: “of other planets I am dreaming, of other ways of seeing this life.”

Meaghan Elyse is an interdisciplinary artist working with design, biophilic sculpture, painting and performance. Her work explores the boundaries of our bodies, of home, of our surrounding ecologies, and the porousness of these edges. Along with collaborators, she is interested in creating spaces for interaction, for rest, for dreaming, for mourning, for healing.

(b. 1992, London, UK) She is based in New York and Massachusetts. She holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University where she was a recipient of the Leroy Neiman Fellowship.

Professional Highlights

• I am creating collaborative murals with the BRC homeless shelter network in New York City; last year we completed a Birdwomen mural and are currently developing another.
  
  
• My essay ‘Birdwoman’ about hybrid women and bird creatures, was selected and published in COSMOS, a feminist arts and research publication with Taylor & Francis.
  
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• I have been invited to residencies which allow me to encounter new landscapes and allow my work to expand, at Yaddo, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and Salem Art Works.
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• I graduated from the Columbia University MFA program, where I was awarded the Leroy Neiman Fellowship; my thesis work ‘Cella’ was featured in the Columbia Arts Review.
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• My first solo exhibition, Lighthouse of Moth, was presented at The Boiler Gallery, and was featured in BOMB magazine. I created a spiral scaffolding draped with silk, which asked how we can send messages outwards into the world with our art.