Margot Dermody
Artist based in Pittsburgh, PA
ABOUT
Margot Dermody (b. Takoma Park, MD) is an artist based in Pittsburgh, PA. Her work was featured in the group exhibition Believing in Tomorrow curated by PxP Contemporary at NoName Gallery in Philadelphia, August 2024. Earlier in the year, her work was shown in Fluid at Mark Rengers Gallery through January 6, 2024, and Bodies with PxP Contemporary Gallery through January 31, 2024. Her most recent solo exhibitions include Light Through Stone, Women United Art Movement, June 2023, and The Way of Peace, Forward and Back in the Pittsburgh Federal Courthouse lobby as part of the Art in the Courthouse series, November 15, 2022 through April 15, 2023. Her work has been showcased in numerous other exhibitions, including Stories to be Told, Art Mum’s (2023); Chromatic, PxP Contemporary Gallery (2022); Stronger Together, Art Mum’s (2022); Alone, Together, the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh (2021); Full Circle, Concept Art Gallery (2021); and the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh 107th Annual Exhibition at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art (2019-2020). She has also presented her art in the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Gallery, William Pitt Union, Gallery One | Collective Works, and the Pittsburgh Center for Arts and Media. Margot participated in the Artist Residency Program at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2021, where she continues to work as a studio artist. Bringing together elements of the natural world with human emotion in painting, sculpture, and photography, her work spans a wide range from a neutral monochromatic palette to a more explicitly vivid and affective narrative.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Material transformation and play allow me to engage in an internal excavation of self and suggest concealed aspects of my personal narrative. My daily practice of painting and sculpture breathes freshness into my exploration of nature and humanity. Combining forms through their most elemental properties, I invest in my work with constant courage and integrity, embracing vulnerability. I use abstraction to process memories and explore connections between human emotion and the natural world. Experiences of survival and growth lead to a search for self-understanding and open up an instinctive relationship with the process of making. This work is not a metaphor but an intuitive mapping of a search for energy and lightness within my body and its psychological relationship to memory, love, and material. Informed by changing conditions of light and texture, my surfaces often focus on a slightly unstable or transitory state between different elements, such as marble and glass, or layers of paint. The dance of making marks—considering and responding to them—is integral to my process. Exploring personal consciousness through light and shadow, each composition creates a space where an internal feeling is barely gestured to, just beyond visibility or naming. My paintings and sculptures create tension between minimal and overworked areas through building up, scraping down, and alternating intensity. In abstract layers of opacity and translucency, my works ask how to locate beauty in the shadows and bring light into life.
Website: https://www.margotdermody.com
Instagram: @margotdermody