Meg Hitchcock

In today’s era of immediate gratification and hi-speed internet, where the word has become tantamount to extinction, shortened to the barest of acronyms and further replaced by emojis and gifs, paper collage artist Meg Hitchcock is a savior, or at the very least an advocate for the lost art of literary reference and reverence. The creation, deconstruction and resurrection of the word through Hitchcock’s analogue process of typing, cutting out and pasting, in what some would call an obsessive (others devoted) methodology verges on madness. 

Oh my. This is the insanely detailed and thoughtful work of Brooklyn based artist Meg Hitchcock. Most of her work combines different religious texts, but I just had to include that first stunning piece which is made up of excerpts from her grandmother’s diary and letters cut from the Kama Sutra. Amazing! Here are Meg’s words about this beautiful work:

“In my text drawings I examine and dissect the word of God. I deconstruct a sacred text by cutting its individual letters, and reassemble them to form a passage from another holy book. The Koran is transformed into the Bible, the Bible into the Bhagavad Gita, and so on. I discourage a literal reading of the text by eliminating punctuation and spacing; a sentence from one text merges with a passage from another. By bringing together the sacred writings of diverse religions, I undermine their authority and speak to the common thread that weaves through all scripture.”

Art gallery Scream London showcases Telling Tales, a group exhibition featuring local UK and international artists whose crafts dissect and reassemble words from different languages. Schön! had the opportunity to talk with two artists, who both use the printed word in their artwork, but in completely different ways.

Meg Hitchcock does more than examine the word of God; she slices and dices the heart of religion to highlight the universal forces holding society together. Hitchcock literally cuts letters from holy books to create other sacred texts. The Koran is transformed into the Bible, the Bible turns into the Bhagavad Gita, and so on.

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Meg Hitchcock, a Brooklyn-based artist, celebrates the human need to reach outside ourselves, through sacred language honouring Christianity, Judaism and Islam with a cross-pollination of text from the Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an. Dismantling the texts a letter at a time, she transforms them into intricate threads of text. The visual dissection of the word of God runs off the page and provokes us to question our own belief structure.

Hitchcock spoke about her work to Kate Tiernan from her studio in Brooklyn. The following is an excerpt from a longer conversation.

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Utilizing the sacred text of various religions, Meg Hitchcock weaves a tapestry of inspired writings that transcends words. Each work of art is what Hitchcock calls ‘a visual mantra of devotion’—a continuous line of text forms the words and run-on sentences without spaces or punctuation. The end result is a multi-layered narrative that culminates into the human need for connection with the sacred.

In anticipation of her upcoming group show at Design Matters Gallery entitled ‘Word Play’, I had the chance to chat with this unique artist. Here Meg talks about her Christian background, growing up in a New England town, and the message behind her work.

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