Megan Knobloch Geilman

Megan Knobloch Geilman is a stay-at-home mom, freelance graphic designer, and contemporary artist currently residing in Provo, Utah. She studied Art at the California College of the Arts and Brigham Young University. Her work uses art historical reference and symbolic objects to explore doctrine, history, and social issues within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her work is inspired by, among others: the Dutch masters, Jeff Wall, Sandy Skoglund, Bill Viola, and Fred Wilson. In 2019 she exhibited a collaborative video art piece with fellow artists Page Turner and Samantha Zauscher at the Center for Latter-day Saints in New York City. She also had her first solo show at Writ & Vision in downtown Provo shortly before the arrival of her 3rd child, and was awarded “Honorable Mentions” in both the Certain Women art show and Springville Museum’s Spiritual and Religious Show.

Artist Statement
“The artist’s series of photographic and digital compositions explores gospel doctrine, social issues, and historical narrative from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Using art historical reference and symbolic objects, the artist seeks to explore these narratives and communicate them for new audiences. The process for each piece takes four to six months to accomplish from conceptualization to execution and often involves a small team to assist in making the artist’s vision a reality. Scholar Rosalynd Welch has written of her work: “[The Artists’s] method, intricate tableaux vivant rigorously staged, lit, and photographed, draws on several important Latter-day Saint aesthetic traditions. The images, formal still-life compositions of lavish costumes and props, reflect the rich Mormon history of didactic pageantry, itself a crucial mode of translation between 20th century Mormonism and wider American culture. Their stately composition and decorative flourishes recall the Latter-day Saint painter Minerva Teichert’s indispensable oil paintings of scripture and religious history. The photographed scenes, especially [her] “Self Portrait in Collaboration with Page Turner,” are rich in the traditional handicrafts of Mormon folk art, especially the textile arts including works of dressmaking, tatting, and quilting, some of which [she] has handmade.”