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Meghan Boody
Meghan Boody is an American artist. Her work consists largely of digitally manipulated photographs as well as some multi media sculpture. It is surreal in nature and heavily narrative, often focusing on themes of self discovery. The subject is usually young girls, often elaborately dressed, who are placed in bizarre settings.

Personal Life
Meghan Boody, born Margaret Liscomb Boody, was born in New York City. She was the only adopted child of her older parents and was raised on the upper east side. Her father worked at Columbia University and her mother worked as a tester for the Education Records Bureau. She spent lots of time alone, as she was the only child of two working parents, and created worlds of her own incorporating her toys, dog, and pet mice. Her family would spend time in Long Island during the summer and weekends. She says of the experience that she “felt liberated and less alone, roaming the fields barefoot and shirtless, making forts with the neighborhood kids.” In 1995 Meghan married James C. Ayer Jr., who worked as a portfolio manager. He graduated from Yale and Oxford. Their marriage did not last, but they have a son together, who Boody credits as an inspiration to her work. She noticed that after his birth her work became “a little lighter and more reality based”.

Education and Training
Meghan Boody went to Georgetown University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and French. She travelled to Paris her junior year to study under famed philosophers Jacques Derrida and Jean François Lyotard. In 1986 she moved to Paris, where she studied fashion design at Parsons. On a whim she enrolled in an introductory photography course and instantly took an interest in the medium. After studying in Paris, she returned to New York where she spent three years as an apprentice for Hans Namuth, a photographer. While working with him she began to incorporate interactive sculpture into her photography practice.

Process and Inspiration
Boody’s work is process heavy. She photographs her costumed models in studio and then digitally adds them into the landscape or background images that she finds. She spends hours upon hours compiling the layers. Each piece takes months to finish.

The overtly theatrical and fictionalized quality in her work is inspired by the photographers Henry Peach Robinson and Oscar Rejlander. Boody says “all of my studies of philosophy contributed to piecing together my own philosophy on how I tell these stories in my photography.” In addition to philosophy, her work is also influenced by American, British, and French literature.

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