Megan Gafford
http://megangafford.com/
Megan Gafford is an artist who received her MFA from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2016, and her BA from the University of New Orleans in 2011. She uses unsettling scientific materials like radiation and cybernetics as an art medium; by making those materials beautiful, she mingles eeriness and elegance together. Gafford’s research focuses on the tension between pursuing knowledge and curiosity killing the cat. She often wonders about the blind nature of science, and she uses her work as a way to ask others to wonder about it, too. Gafford has exhibited at galleries and museums nationally, including SITE Gallery Houston, David B Smith Gallery in Denver, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Backyard Ballroom in New Orleans. She is currently based in Denver, Colorado, where she completed an artist residency at RedLine Contemporary Art Center and currently serves as a member of that non-profit’s board of directors.
Megan Gafford’s work featured in The Space(s) Between is Subatomic Chorus, 2017, installation of handmade Geiger counters, dimensions variable. Seen at left is the work in a previous installation.
Subatomic Chorus is a grouping of five Geiger counters that are sensitive enough to detect the background radiation that bombards us all of the time; it comes from outer space, minerals in the earth, and nuclear testing and bomb dropping. The Geiger counters chirp every time they detect nuclear radiation as if they were singing together in a choir. They draw attention to the invisible, subatomic world that impacts our DNA in ways scientists do not fully understand.
