A Thoroughly Modern Old Master…The Art Of Megan Euell

Take youthful energy, mix it with a classic renaissance sensibility, add a dash of fashion flare and you will have artist Megan Euell. The Southampton native whose family dates back 12 generations including a family home for the last six, tapped into her creative talent at a young age. Yet as if channeling a past life, her interest was in classical drawing and painting in the French academic method. “The education I sought out is learning these methods that have been used for centuries – the same that Rembrandt used,” recounts Euell. Indeed, her oil paintings adeptly augment the use of light and color to capture contemporary images with a master’s style.

Euell began her studies at the Long Island Academy of Fine Art then progressed to one of the country’s top art schools, the Savannah College of Art and Design where she met her fiancé Francis Waplinger. Both journeyed to Florence for three years where she studied at the famed Florence Academy of Art and he was studying the traditional fine art craftsmanship of shoemaking. Like a scene from an E.M. Forster novel the two would study by day and enjoy Aperitivo’s or cappuccinos by night in romantic cafes. “We have these chapters, and we keep growing and growing together,” says Euell of the partnership, “What we do is similar and yet different, and we have that dialogue between our two crafts.”

Upon the couple’s return to the East End in 2015, Euell continued mastering classical oil painting which includes portraits, landscapes and still lives both originals and commissions. Her ability to capture the essence of her subject gives vibrancy to these representational works which make them come to life. “How do I make it feel windy or look hot?” she muses, “For me you need to be paying as much attention as possible to the subject and thinking about what makes that scene or object or person inherently them. It’s hard to give something a sense of life if you don’t really resonate with that subject matter.”

Resonance abounds for Euell not only in her local family roots but those of the pioneers of the Art Colony in Southampton such as William Merritt Chase in the late 1800’s, even teaching his plein air methods to contemporary students. She relishes his work in the Parrish Art Museum (where she often begs to have more on display) as well as that of Thomas Moran whose former residence and studio has recently been renovated into a museum in East Hampton. “William Merritt Chase has part of the same education that I have,” Euell comments, “There is a direct lineage from the person he studied under to one of the maestros I studied under. That blew my mind.”

Euell and Waplinger seek out a community of like-minded young people who want to preserve the fine art and craftsmanship of America. Eschewing the disposable culture, they embrace works of quality which take time and training, often trading such as Waplinger trading his hand-made shoes with a blacksmith for custom made brass shoe horns. Quality over quantity is the mission, and Euell who loves to cook from scratch sites the slow food and farm to table movement as prime examples.

Euell is also firmly rooted in her own modern culture where artists may not be discovered in a salon but on Instagram (although a Laguna gallery owner did discover her painting on Main Street in Sag Harbor.) The time and energy to create compelling content and gain followers in numbers able to attract a gallery’s attention are part of an artist’s day as they act as their own PR director, as she puts it “Doing crafts that are slow and translating them to a fast platform.”

Yet through both social media and traditional galleries such as Grenning in Sag Harbor, her membership in the Salmagundi Club of NYC or partnership with the Westhampton Country Club which all display her work, she finds her appreciative audience. “There is something to be said for the technical level for painting like this. It takes a long time to learn how to paint it, like the 300 steps per shoe it takes for Francis. It inspires awe and respect. It’s almost surreal to think how we make something like that.”

www.meganeuell.com