Megan Prince: Jean Bodies and Friends
Mini Mart City Park, Seattle, WA
July 30 - August 13, 2022

Relationships compel interdisciplinary abstract artist Megan Prince to create; relationships between people, to belongings, and to the earth. We are all tied together by relationship. Her work points to the similarities we all share and the intrinsic desire we have of being together.

Prince’s floor sculptures, Jean Bodies, are constructed from donated used jeans, cut up and hand knit together. Her material choice speaks to accessibility and inclusion of all people and being a steward of our world. Using donated jeans nods to the people who wore them and the community relationship of the donors. One of the most common items people wear is a jean. With a range of attributes Prince uses jeans as a vehicle to look at similarities and differences in communities. Donation is also an important part of her project creating relationship, empowering people, and inviting participation in the conversation while pointing to environmental impact.

The Jean Bodies point to a variety of ways that we come together in this life as people. One aspect of these sculptures is how their shapes reference forms found in nature, including the scale of the human body. The titles for these sculptures are culled from a combination of life experiences, and combined with intimate feelings as well as my readings. In her Jean Body, Banding together in our humanity, Prince is inspired by an interview of activist and UW runner, Rosalie Fish, who races with a red handprint on her face to raise awareness of violence against indigenous women.

Intimate and maybe a little sentimental, Prince’s Remnant Relationships are small to medium sized hand-woven soft sculptures. The use of remnant materials is a micro look at what relationships we consider as cast-offs in society. Frequently made from leftover pieces of cast-off or remnant materials, the works in this series range from lap to palm sized and are made from a variety of pliable materials such as cotton, plastic, vintage lace, and suede. Prince’s recent work, Waiting for another to make the words, is a direct reflection after the Uvalde shooting, on the countless past shootings of our most vulnerable people. The size of each piece is directly related to the quantity of material available.