Today we’d like to introduce you to Megha Parhar

Hi Megha, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

My journey into art emerged from various pathways throughout my life that subtly guided me here. As a kid, I would always scribble or sketch out comics about cows for some reason and draw mimicries of my favorite cartoons. After a grade 5 art class I became obsessed with sketching and doing mini watercolours of Picasso’s Maya with Doll. I’d make up Bollywood dance routines in my head listening to songs, write short form novels about mystery and crime in middle school, painstakingly put together curated playlists of songs I downloaded using Napster then Kazaam then Limewire lol. All of these are creative endeavours that honed my skills in curation, pattern recognition and visual communication.

In University, I left with a degree in Psychology with Economics, and while studying abroad I learned that fashion (beyond retail) was a legitimate career path. This realization led me to study Fashion Marketing and Merchandising abroad, intern at a NYC fashion house, ultimately ending in managing a few European brands for the Hudson Bay Company. I then went back to school to study Industrial Design and Techniques to learn how to actually create and make the garments and that’s where I put together my first design portfolio including collage.

Working in corporate fashion as a business analyst, and doing the heavy lifting analyzing all aspects of our brand was also one big road into collaging for me, because it was looking at seas of data and winnowing huge data sets down to useful conclusions, making aesthetically appealing charts to show trends and the story in the data while also doing very high level to very granular analyses. This analytical approach parallels my collage process, where I meticulously select and cut on average between 300-400 images to create cohesive pieces.

All the crafts, doodles, extremely amateur choreography, styling, and analytics I’ve done throughout my life have converged to hone my storytelling skills. Studying design further enhanced my understanding of visual language, recognizing that images and garments function as visual letters. Each seemingly unrelated job, degree, long list of failures and random attempt at something new has contributed to my development as a collage artist, illustrating that every experience, visibly connected or not, has led me to where I am today.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?

I would say my creative process has been both smooth and challenging. Internally, I’ve always felt driven to express myself through various mediums like art, dance, writing, and styling. However, externally, the journey has had its struggles. I’ve faced common challenges such as imposter syndrome, feeling out of place, and moments of loneliness that many can relate to. These experiences, while frustrating, have been part of my growth.

On a deeper level, I’ve encountered more significant hurdles that are harder to articulate. Finding my voice, especially in my collage work, was a profound challenge. For the first year, I hesitated to share my creations, leaving over a hundred pieces unseen due to self-doubt.

Additionally, I’ve navigated trauma from an abusive relationship, sexual assault, and witnessing violence, which drastically impacted my sense of safety and ability to create. These experiences left me in survival mode, making creativity feel nearly impossible.

It took years of intensive therapy to rebuild my desire to create and eventually find the courage to share my work. While I can easily create and post online, I still struggle with the vulnerability of being seen and expressing the emotional weight of my experiences.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?

I make visual art, specifically within the collage medium and I specialize in kind of being a Jack of all Trades or specializing in nothing and everything, lol. My work is known for its prolific nature, diversity of theme and unexpected approach to the collage medium. When people generally think “collage,” I’ve noticed they often think of the European style, which is usually more abstract or about deconstruction, using historical imagery, photographs, fabric with a more vintage or classical look. Mine in contrast are heavily focused on cultural and political critiques, feature black and brown subjects, and are more stylistically fluid and expressive. I think what’s I’m ‘known’ for is that a lot of my work is influenced by activism and protest art, 90s hip hop and rap, Black American culture, Dapper Dan and remixing high/low fashion, pop culture, movement, fashion history, and socioeconomics.

I think what I’m most proud of is two-fold: one is that I’m proud of making the type of art with themes and subjects that I needed to see growing up (and as an adult), that I never really did and hopefully being a mirror that others like me, can see themselves in. The other more tangible thing I’m most proud of is that I applied for and got my first solo show early in my career that focused on LGBTQIA+ artists & decolonization in historical museums; but more so that because it was early and I had never had a showing or curated collection – I went kind of nuts. I took a whole year that was part of an attached art mentorship, did deep historical research and ideation during that time and ended up producing 60 works of art, in a show called “Portraits of Absence.” It included a large mural triptych that featured 40 classical European artworks in the Louvre with every object (including persons) that were stolen or obtained through violent colonization to show would be left over without us. It also included both a functioning sitting room to decompress in, with soft rugs, pillows, books, tarot cards to play with and art supplies as well as an outdoor rage room, in which I had a Spotify playlist, artworks featuring my rage and therapy bats, pillows, teddy bears to destroy or private room to scream in and decompress.

I think what sets me apart from others is that a lot of my art focuses on cultural and political critiques, uses both traditional collage methods with digital techniques to finish them, and a wide range of themes that are often considered “ugly” or “inappropriate”: decolonization, female rage, the hidden costs of fashion, beauty and consumption, mental health, the costs of womanhood, sexual assault, police brutality, anticapitalism and more subtlety, asexuality.

What I’m most proud of both art and brand-wise is how adaptable I think my art is into wearable art and how it deals with ‘ugly’ shit; because it’s me showing up for myself and others who needed to see this representation and couldn’t really find it.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?

Well, I think the way that’s worked for me whether it be in corporate or design school or just while making art full time – is being and showing your passion and dedication to what you’re doing. I had mentors in the above scenarios find me, so to speak, because I was passionate about the projects I was working on that they either led, taught or worked on with me and I was visibly dedicated to learning, fixing, improving throughout my tenure with them. I find that if you’re passionate about whatever it is that you’re doing, people notice, often find it endearing and some will see the vision that you have, identify with you and want to help you on your journey. My advice for finding a mentor is to just be passionate, talk about what drives you, what lights you up and you’ll find your people – but to also be discerning. Every person has diverse skill sets, and some people will want to help you reach your vision and others will want to redirect you to apply your skills and passion towards their vision or projects because you’re talented and they see your value – when applied to their projects.

When networking, and let’s be clear: I understand its value but I hate it and find it incredibly emotionally and physically draining. With that being said, my general advice would be to:

 Find your aesthetic and style, that’s authentically you and looks put together and make sure you dress in alignment with who you are and what you’re comfy in – if you dress to fit an idea you think you should be, that isn’t what you usually wear, you will look uncomfortable, fidget more than usual and potentially sabotage yourself
 Bring some small cheap goodies with you that you can hand out – I like to bring small temporary tattoos of my artwork that I can hand out or stickers; they get people excited and show a little of what you can do
 If you’re at a booth or static in any way, bring an individually packaged plate of goodies – I like to bring a bag of individually packaged reese butter cups to get people to stop by and engage
 Have some business cards ready to hand out; they don’t have to be graphically designed or complicated, just something simple and easy with your contact info
 Sign up to your alumni groups if they have networking groups, industry groups in your city and online and attend workshops or fairs they may have, etc
 If you’re neurodivergent or disabled and attend, scope out the scene first and create an exit plan if needed, carry any mobility or self regulating aids you may need, and leave when you reach your limit instead of trying to push past your capacity
 I’m both of the above, so my go to includes:
loop in earphones that are subtle but noise blocking if needed
pre-tested outfits that I know are comfy, look put together and won’t make me overheat
fidget toy – if it has to be more professional, rings you can fidget with
breakable cold pack to regulate because I over heat with overwhelm

What has worked best for me when networking or looking for a mentor has been showing my passion, dressing in a way that works for me and my limitations and trusting and respecting my body and its boundaries. Easy to say, hard to do on all counts admittedly.

Pricing:

• I’m actually working on making my pricing more transparent and showing the art economics behind the scenes if you will behind the exhibit I created as an example. I think what’s relevant to our readers is how much work and money goes into collaging as opposed other traditional forms of art, where its more accepted how long it takes to lets say paint a canvas and the cost of materials. This is what my process looks like realistically:
• Materials  6-8 magazines: $97  1-2 large theme coffee table books: $60 (bargain)  The annual costs for glue, double-sided tape, Posca paint markers and colouring pencils are covered by me  Total: $157
• Labour:  Teaching rate: $300/hour  Selecting images and magazines in store: 2-3 hour ($750)  Cutting images on average: 4-6 hours ($1500)  Laying out images on average: 2 hours ($600)  Collaging on average: 10-12 hours ($3300)  Scanning, uploading original works: 3-6 hours on average depending on the number of collages I made ($1350 on avg)  Editing: 12-20 hours on average ($4800)  Uploading to platforms: 5-6 hours on average per platform (2 platforms:$4950 on avg)
• Total Costs:  Low end total excluding scanning/editing/uploading: $6556 for 12-30 collages  High end including all costs: $17,656 including cost of materials for 12-30 collages Monthly Software Subscriptions:  Picmonkey $15  Canva pro $16  Adobe $107  Website hosting: $75  Print on demand platform Printify: $36  Total: $249 Pricing Model: Let’s assume I make 20 collages:  Low end per collage: $327.80 (excluding all finishing labour) This doesn’t include travel costs, time spent copywriting, researching hashtags and SEO, or profit and mark up; solely 70% of costs.  Full Price per collage: $882.80
• Despite these costs, I price my prints significantly lower, starting at $75 for 11.14” to $390 for 30×40” and offer Afterpay as an option for affordability. It’s pretty crazy the gap the labour and cost of creating art and the perceived value by the customer and what they’re willing to pay for any given product, especially since labour is so devalued in our capitalist system that everyone’s grossly underpaid and art is not a necessity like food, healthcare, rent.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://monsoonarts.ca/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monsoonartsbym/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/monsoonartsbym/
• Other: https://MonsoonartsbyM.redbubble.com

Image Credits

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