GOSHEN — Megan Fleming sat at her kitchen table, eyes bright as she contemplated the source of her artistic inspiration.
Her finished paintings are inky blue canvasses brushed in cascading light and glowing color. They are beautiful. Precise. Intentionally, intelligently designed.
“In college, I had to do a senior show, and I chose the theme of exploring the fabric of creation,” she began. “My art is asking questions about our place in creation and with the creator.”
Fleming said she has always been an observer and philosopher. It’s natural for her curiosity to become part of her art. Her paintings are an amalgam of philosophic concepts, mathematics and the mesmerizing alien beauty of the far-off corners of the cosmos. Swirling galaxies overlap with koi fish and an ocean of stars — or the liquid reflection of stars, at least.
“The bubbles kind of look like constellations,” she said. She enjoys playing with these sorts of double exposures that beckon viewers to look a little longer.
Though Fleming graduated from Goshen College with an art degree over a decade ago, her curiosity about humankind’s relation to the rest of the universe has only expanded since then.
TRINITY TRANSFORMATION
Several years ago, Fleming became fascinated with the 2012 phenomenon. This led her to a new interest in crop circles, which became the unifying visual element in a new painting series. The circles, Fleming said, are based on sacred geometry.
Fleming described sacred geometry as a mandala: “So you have a center, and then forms that can be moved out from the center, and you can use it for centering or meditation,” she said.
Sacred geometry is used in multiple spiritual practices, from interlocking Celtic rings that represent the trinity to the mandala used in Hinduism or Buddhism. Also referred to as the “Flower of Life” the circular symbol is “in our DNA,” according to Fleming.
“From the basic level to the top level, (it’s in) the cosmic organization of thing, the macro to the micro,” she said.
In her “Trinity Transformation” painting series, Fleming explores the infinite patterns she can create when varying the sacred geometric forms slightly.
“I actually have to use math. It’s amazing,” she said with a laugh.
Rather than choosing the sweeping, conceptual forms that come most naturally to her when painting, Fleming forces herself to stay disciplined for the end result when working on her “Trinity Transformation” series — and sometimes the crop circle series too.
“For me, the important thing is the concept and knowing the end, where I want to get to. If that’s the method, I just put in the work,” she said.
COSMIC SERIES
Fleming often returns to her cosmic series, an evolution of what she started in college. She’s affectionately dubbed the collection “Fish in Space” — a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Muppets’ “Pigs in Space” sketch, she said.
“I did have a crossroads moment in 2014 with learning more about the universe and our place in it, and that we’re not alone. … It took me into rabbit holes all over the place. And in my art, it brought back ideas of the cosmic beyond our Earth. What’s out there? What is our relationship to the rest of the universe?” she mused.
As she ponders and paints, Fleming is humble about the scope of her art. She doesn’t assume she’s revealing any answers through her art. It’s less about communication and more about using her own explorations to create something enjoyable.
“I think mostly the communication for me is, how beautiful is it turning out to be?” she said.
When beginning on a fresh canvas, she simply pulls a bit of inspiration from her idea journal and “mashes it together” with whatever has caught her interest of late.
“For me, it helps to have a series, so I can say, ‘OK, am I going to go the trinity transformation pattern direction or do I want to explore more about the koi and how they relate to this form in space?’” she explained.
Whether she’s reading up on crop circles, studying ancient religious geometric symbols or marveling at new imaging from the Hubble Space Telescope, she said that deciding on what to paint is always hard work, since “there are so many ways to include and reinterpret and connect things.”
Leandra Beabout can be reached at leandra.beabout@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 314.
WANT TO SEE MORE?
Megan Fleming sells original artwork and prints, and is available for commissioned pieces.
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