Megan Koth is an artist currently based in Ventura, California. She received her Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. She currently works as the graduate program manager and as a lecturer in the UCSB Department of Art. Her work resides in private collections throughout the United States, and has appeared in Voyage-Phoenix, Lum Artzine, LA Weekly, Hyperallergic, and the Phoenix New Times.
Through a queer, feminist lens, Koth addresses the often fraught relationship that can exist between the topography and interiority of the body. Viral internet imagery, contemporary makeup trends, and the traditions of painting and self-portraiture converge to address themes of body horror, obsessive self-evaluation and maintenance, as well as the liminal space of self-care. Drawing from her own experiences with chronic illness and medical trauma, Koth interrogates how personal grooming in the form of skincare and beauty rituals can be a crucial exterior reaction to interior anxieties towards exerting, and sometimes losing, control over one’s body and health.
