Megan Koth

The Hartnell College Art Gallery presents Skin Deep, a solo exhibition of recent paintings and works by Megan Koth. Koth is a Ventura-based painter who looks at the world through a queer, feminist lens. “My work explores the often fraught relationship that women have to beauty rituals,” she wrote on her website, “and how they navigate the contradictory spaces of self-care, grooming and consumption.” Drawing from her own experiences with chronic illness and medical trauma, Koth explores how personal grooming in the form of skincare and beauty rituals can be “a crucial exterior reaction to interior anxieties towards exerting, and sometimes losing, control over one’s body and health.” An opening reception takes place 4-6pm Thursday, Feb. 26. The gallery is located at the Visual Arts Building (Building J) at Hartnell College, 411 Central Ave., Salinas. Open by appointment until Thursday, March 5.