Megan Bickel

Lives and works in Louisville, KY, USA

Artist statement

Recently, I am spending a considerable amount of time meditating on two words as they relate to one another in their contemporary context: illusion and allusion. An illusion—of course—is a trick. Perhaps it appears as camouflage, or perhaps it appears in the process of convincing a viewer that they are witnessing something. It can appear in the cultivating of a false belief, but however it appears, the one in control of the creation of an illusion is the maker. The viewer is powerless outside of their control over their belief in the illusion. On the contrary, an allusion can be commonly articulated as an expression designed to call a subject to mind without mentioning it explicitly; it is also primarily literary. It can appear as an indirect or passing reference and I would make the argument that a visual illusion maintains the same responsibility as the allusion--to call an idea or theory into the mind of the viewer. Perhaps the difference in these two words lies in the responsibility of the imagination of the reader. Perhaps as innate consumers of images, there is a malice that is projected onto the illusion. Perhaps that projection of malice appears when we know we are being had, whilst remaining convinced or complacent of its argument. This malice is absent in the allusion-- for merely referencing allows the reader the permission to freely coagulate an image within the safety of their interior mind. Though my approach to media differs from object to object, I would...

Artwork