Meghann Stephenson

Queen of the Neighborhood!

September 9th - October 8th, 2026

Opening: September 9th, 6-8 PM

Queen of the Neighborhood!, Stephenson’s third solo exhibition, continues the artist’s exploration of femininity, morality, and social expectation through the framework of Dante’s Inferno.

This body of work investigates moral narratives inherited from the Western religious-literary canon, examining how they differ across gender and continue to shape contemporary womanhood. Across nine paintings corresponding to the nine circles of Hell, Stephenson renders each sin through a distinctly feminine lens where anger, violence, vanity, desire, and inaccessibility take quieter, more intimate forms. Rather than depicting grand acts of wrongdoing, the works consider the subtle behaviors, desires, and expressions through which women have historically been perceived to transgress, positioning both subjects and viewers within shifting roles of judgment and complicity.

In works such as Being a Saint Is Exhausting, a portrait of a young woman just beginning to recognize her own beauty, sexuality, and connection to nature, and Feels Like Drowning, which depicts a woman seemingly resigned to being swallowed by a cloud, surrounded by unkempt grasses, Stephenson depicts the sins of Heresy and Anger through a feminine perspective. In To the Core, a quiet still life of an apple whose hint of rot appears only in its reflection on a polished silver tray, serves as both a playful nod to Eve in the Garden and an acknowledgment of how even minor infractions are harshly judged. In Are You Looking Up?, Stephenson frames Limbo as a distinctly domestic confinement. A woman, turned away from the viewer, stands within the tight boundaries of a white picket fence, crystallizing the suspended agency and prescribed containment of womanhood.

Meghann Stephenson (b. 1990, Virginia) received her BFA from Parsons in 2013. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Megan Mulrooney, Felix LA; Woaw Gallery, Hong Kong; Moosey, London; Harper's, East Hampton; Half Gallery, Armory NY and Make Room, Frieze Seoul. She lives and works in Los Angeles.