about
Morgan Bukovec is an Ohio born mixed media artist, community organizer, educator, working across textiles, installation, ceramics, collage, and performance to tell stories. Her art practice begins with asking questions and allowing materials to guide her in discovery.
In 2018, she was awarded bachelors degrees in both Fine Arts and Arts Education from the University of Dayton and since has exhibited her art work nationally and internationally across solo and group exhibitions. Bukovec has worked with several community art spaces, providing intentional art programming and runs her own art community: Lava Lamp Lounge with over 500 members worldwide.
Her last project, BODY/CYCLE, exhibited at Index Gallery as a Solo Show in 2025, used a combination of found materials and porcelain to explore her relationship to hormonal birth control, women’s health, and the learning/unlearning we experience as humans about our bodies. This project invited members of the community to submit their own experiences about their body/cycle. Their stories were then a part of The Broken Plate Project, furthering community engagement and connection. Her current artistic practice asks the question: “In a world surrounded by chaos, uncertainty, and a sense of powerlessness, how can art and gathering build deeper connection to self, community, and the land?”
Her lineage of ancestors has impacted her personal identity, artistic practice, and ability to ask meaningful questions.
Bukovec’s personal heritage is rooted in her great-grandparents settling in Cleveland, Ohio from Slovenia, Ireland, Poland, and Germany. It was no surprise when Bukovec learned that her ancestors were craftspeople and farmers with ties to shoemaking, embroidery, photography, pottery, and deep connections to nature. Growing up with grandfathers working in trades of carpentry and butchery, and both grandmothers as full-time homemakers and seamstresses, Bukovec was surrounded by strong values of the handmade. Consistent family gatherings of ritual, food, music, and storytelling has shaped this artist’s sense of community, expression, and belonging.
Since growing up in the 90s, Bukovec has seen our modern world impacted and transformed by technology, urgency, convenience, isolation, and the growing threat of artificial intelligence. Overall, she believes there is a massive disconnect between the spirit of one’s self and the reciprocal relationship to nature and community.
Bukovec’s art practice directly combats this disconnect through making and gathering, which she believes is her work in this world. Her slow making methods, rooted in ancestral heritage, and use of intentional materials, gives her audience opportunities to engage with her work in meaningful ways. Bukovec is interested in how spaces, performance, and interactive installations provide an opportunity for personal and communal connection, reclamation, and empowerment. She witnessed this first hand during her 3-day event titled Reclamation. She saw the powerful effects of organizing an intentional and free space for community members to gather, write poetry, create art work, perform on an open mic stage, and dance with the theme centered on reclaiming experiences through creative expression. During this event, Bukovec exhibited a vulnerable self portrait series. This was an extension from her “are you on the menu” series. (recognized by Teen Vogue and Meta Platforms.)
She believes that connection is the way forward.
She is especially interested in how alternative spaces like community gardens, cafes, and natural gathering sites dismantle the traditional white-walled gallery space, providing an openness for unique engagement experiences. Currently, Bukovec is creating new art works based on the current political landscape and organizing an event titled: Resist & Persist.
