Meggan Gould: Sorry, No Pictures

Meggan Gould’s Sorry, No Pictures examines photographic tools and technologies and their constant teeter on the edge of obsolescence. Gould takes apart and re-contextualizes the smallest aspects of the medium, including the iconography of camera dials, the design of viewfinder patterns, and the ubiquitous Epson inkjet printer test pattern. Intertwined with personal narrative, the artist uses “playful resistance” in her work to question the role of corporations and manufacturers of photographic technologies — from Kodak to Flickr — in shaping photography, image-making, vision, and the language surrounding the medium. The exhibition makes clear how the personal and political converge in art-making, an important point at this moment when the true cost of photography’s cultural and ecological impact is coming into focus.

The complexity and sophistication of Gould’s work mirrors the maker, who as a visual artist, educator, writer, lecturer, and mother has lived many lives all at once. Sorry, No Pictures offers a beautiful, oftentimes laugh-out-loud funny, and ultimately hopeful narrative that art-making, by its nature, involves failure, change, and transcendence.

Published in book format in 2021, the exhibition Sorry, No Pictures brings the impact of scale, presence, and additional context to Gould’s artwork. You can read more about each piece in the copies of Sorry, No Pictures available in the gallery.

About the artist: 

Meggan Gould (meggangould.net) is a photographer living and working outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of New Mexico. Her multifaceted practice uses photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation in an open ended dissection of vision and photographic tools.