Megan Coonelly and the Art of Visual Prayer
Photography By A. Taylor Studio
Some artwork fades into the background; Megan Coonelly’s refuses to be ignored.
It’s evocative and arresting, the kind that effortlessly sparks conversation. It calls out to you like an old friend, ready to envelop you in a hug.
It even had me slamming on my car brakes as I was driving through New Hope, Pennsylvania one evening earlier this summer. Out of the corner of my eye, I had noticed one of Coonelly’s Hail Mary portraits propped up on an easel in the window of what appeared to be her new gallery. It felt like the 48” x 60” statement piece was alive, demanding my attention from across the street in a quiet and polite sort of way.
After I parked my car, I stood on the sidewalk outside of the gallery, taking in the piece. I knew immediately that I had to interview Coonelly. After all, art showcasing the Blessed Mother is not typical of the town, which is known for its invitation to experience the otherworldly in non-faith-related ways (think psychic and occult shops, ghost tours, etc.). As someone who has had a lifelong love of the Blessed Mother, I had to know what she was doing in New Hope.
Coonelly’s 48” x 60” Hail Mary.
Fast forward a few weeks, and I was back outside Coonelly’s gallery – which I learned also doubles as her studio – for her interview.
The front door is ever so slightly ajar, letting in the cool late summer breeze. As I step inside and say hello, Coonelly greets me excitedly from her second-floor studio. She walks down the stairs to introduce herself and gives me a hug.
We walk down the hardwood steps to her first-floor gallery, where we are surrounded by what feels like endless variations of Coonelly’s Hail Mary series. And everything is pink. It feels like a dream.
I would come to learn that Coonelly had spent the past few months completely transforming the space, a former gallery that came with a dirt-stained carpet and black walls, into a vibrant atmosphere that radiates peace, love, and creative energy.
Glancing around, I notice that the back wall contains a large pink silk-screened Hail Mary next to its pink hand-painted equivalent. There are smaller pink and blue variants propped up against the wall beneath them.
Mini canvases that Coonelly created in collaboration with Arlington-based impasto artist Ann Marie Coolick dot one of the side walls, along with a handful of statues of the Blessed Mother, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.
The wall on the opposite side features a large horizontal baby blue Hail Mary with a pink bench underneath. As I take a seat, Coonelly pulls a fluffy white bench into the center of the room and sits.
“Gosh, it’s so funny because it was something I wasn’t expecting,” she tells me of her brand-new studio-gallery, Megan Coonelly Studio & Friends Gallery.
I learn that Coonelly relocated to New Hope in May. Prior to that, she had been working out of a studio in North Wales, Pennsylvania. “But it was never like, ‘Okay and I have a store. I have places where people can actually see my artwork,’” she shares. “It felt like a factory of produce to get out, produce to get out.”
Yearning for a space where she could simultaneously work and exhibit her craft to the world, Coonelly decided to follow a dream that she had had since she was in high school by searching for a conjoined studio-gallery space in New Hope.
“You know how people browse Zillow just to decompress?” Coonelly asks me. “I was doing that for like rent.com or like apartments.com. Years ago, I was looking at something over there,” she says, pointing down the street. “And it never came to fruition. Then I saw a spot online, which wasn’t even a spot, and the guy was like, ‘Hey! Can you come and meet me at this spot at this time?’ And I was like, ‘Sure,’ and he shows me this spot, and I was terrified. I got home and I was talking to my dad that night, and I was like, ‘I looked at this space, and I don’t know if I’m ready for it. I don’t know if it’s the time or, you know, it’s so much more than what I’m doing in North Wales,’ and he’s like, ‘But it’s New Hope. This is the spot. Like if you’re going to open a gallery, this has always been the spot.’”
One of the many statues of the Blessed Mother that line the walls of Coonelly’s gallery.
Since Coonelly has settled in, her gallery has exclusively featured her own work as it’s been created and before it’s gotten shipped off to the various other galleries – in New Orleans, Dallas, and Ponte Vedra Beach – where she exhibits.
Just last month, however, Coonelly began to transition her gallery into the “And Friends” part of its name.
“My whole idea with this space is not just to feature my work, but that of other artists as well. That’s the part of the ‘And Friends Gallery’ aspect of things,” she explains. “I would say 70% of the time, it is going to be my work displayed. But the other times, I really want to have it be a space for other artists who maybe would not get an audience in New Hope, whether it be fun or illustrative and just…interesting.”
Philadelphia-based Krista Profitt has the honor of being the first outside artist to exhibit in Coonelly’s gallery.
“Her artwork is super fun,” Coonelly tells me. “It’s very…it’s not like this,” she says, gesturing to the Hail Marys surrounding us. “I have several artists who are going to be meditative and sacred, but she’s just fun. She’s doing WWE paintings from the 1990s. I’ve seen previews, and they’re so funny. There’s some seriousness, but I want this space to be fresh and constantly overturning. I want to be inspired by the people who have inspired me,” she says. “I don’t know how WWE will inspire a Hail Mary, but you never know what’s going to happen.”
Profitt’s exhibit, Drama Club, will be featured until October 12th.
Coonelly steps out of her gallery, ready to welcome visitors into her new space.
Coonelly, who is from northeast Philadelphia and now lives in Warminster with her parents and nine-year-old twins, describes herself as the girl who was always drawing in her notebooks and textbooks in elementary and high school. She knew as early as fourth grade that art was her calling.
“There’s a very vivid moment for me where my cousin came over [in class] and was like, ‘What are you going to be, some kind of artist?’ and in my mind, I was like, ‘Well, yes, that’s definitely the path. That’s the only path,’” she shares.
Coonelly would go on to obtain a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Arcadia University in 2006 and a Master of Fine Arts from Illinois State University in 2017.
While in graduate school, Coonelly experienced two life-changing events – the passing of her beloved grandmother, whose deep Catholic faith had always anchored her, and the discovery that she was pregnant with twins – moments of grief and joy that would ultimately inspire her Hail Mary series and shape the trajectory of her career.
Coonelly, who was raised in a devout Catholic family, grew up attending weekly mass and praying the Our Lady of Sorrows novena with her grandmother and extended family. As she reflected on her grandmother’s faith and prepared to embark on her own motherhood journey, she began to incorporate the Blessed Mother into her work. This experimentation eventually culminated in her first Hail Mary after her twins were born.
“It was an August painting,” Coonelly recalls. “I remember it vividly. I remember being like, ‘I need gold leaf on this,’ and I had never used gold leaf before, so I had to figure out how to use it.” Coonelly pauses as a motorcycle roars by outside. “The gold leaf feels like it’s the sealant of…your prayers are here. We feel them, we hear them. That’s the other dimension.”
When I ask Coonelly how she’s able to capture the Blessed Mother’s likeness so perfectly on every Hail Mary, she credits her silk screen.
“I used to hand paint everything, but I realized the Hail Mary is the same every time. So is the image. It’s how you inflict it. So maybe sometimes it’ll be harder when squeegeed down, maybe sometimes it’s lighter. I take that into consideration when creating those pieces and when I build them out with the color and the volume and the gold leaf,” she explains.
“These paintings are a visual prayer,” she continues, gesturing around the gallery. “That’s how I see them. That’s how I create them. That’s why nobody’s is the same, and that’s what makes it! If it had to be perfect the whole time, it would be so boring and people wouldn’t get the message of it. It feels like a radio signal because you know when you’re praying and it almost becomes the mechanism, and you’re going through and it’s a radio and it’s like on repeat and you’re going and going and going? That is what I want them to feel like because that is the motion of prayer – you’re finding an elevation of yourself within each Hail Mary, Our Father – for me personally, it’s Hail Mary because I’m so drawn, I can’t stop,” she whispers. “I’ve been so drawn to her,” she says, laughing. “People used to say you stare at a Mark Rothko and it’s a prayer. This,” she gestures, “Is a prayer. You can fall into her.”
Coonelly explains the process of creating a Hail Mary.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Coonelly feels the Blessed Mother’s guiding hand throughout the process of bringing each new Hail Mary to life.
“She chooses colors – even like that blue,” Coonelly says, motioning to the baby blue Hail Mary hanging behind me. “Every once in a while, I hear, ‘Lavender,’ and I do that. That pops off right away because it’s for a specific person and they’re usually going through something. Sometimes [Mary] will tell me she does not like the color,” she confesses.
“It’s really funny because I’ll sit there, I’ll be like in the moment and having like gold leaf issues, and she’s just like, ‘No. That’s not it. That’s not the rose. It’s a different petal.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay. Whatever you say.’ I feel like when I’m creating these and, particularly with the halos and the gold, she directs me. I feel her. It feels like she’s telling me everybody can be sorrowful and everyone can be deep, but these are what are gonna bring people back, and you are showing people how to actually pray again. The Hail Mary is an introduction back if you’ve been away, but it’s also the hug that you’ve needed if you’ve gone astray.”
Coonelly poses with a Hail Mary in her studio.
“The Hail Mary is an introduction back if you’ve been away, but it’s also the hug that you’ve needed if you’ve gone astray.”
Over time, the Hail Mary has become even more than just a work of art or a vehicle that brings people back to God – Coonelly credits it for facilitating at least one miracle.
Back in Coonelly’s early post-MFA days, she was working out of her Warminster home when a woman from Maryland stumbled upon her Instagram and reached out.
“She wanted to commission a 40x40 quadrant of Mary,” Coonelly recalls. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s great. I’m located in Warminster, PA,’ and she’s like, ‘Wait, do you know the Saint Gianna shrine?’”
The shrine, serendipitously, is housed within Coonelly’s church, The Nativity of Our Lord. It was erected in honor of Saint Gianna Beretta Molla, an Italian pediatric physician who is frequently invoked by women who are struggling to conceive.
“I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s in my church,’” Coonelly continues. “And she was like, ‘I was there last week. We’ve been having trouble conceiving. I prayed for an answer or a gift. I found your Instagram, and that’s your parish.’”
Once Coonelly completed the commission, the woman drove up from Maryland to pick it up, and the two prayed over the painting together.
“She was pregnant by December. Twins. I have twins,” Coonelly says as if still in disbelief.
“It was just this…if you believe in signs, if you believe in…” she says, searching for the words to capture the power of the experience. “It was just these moments of connectivity and like…you gotta believe in miracles after something like that,” she says emphatically. “It is a connectivity, it is a journey, it is…almost like a road that has to be put down as it goes and then you find it. And I got to be a part of that like…crazy. Sacred art can calm you enough to remind you it’s possible. Through prayer, anything is possible.”
One of the silk-screened Hail Marys featured in Coonelly’s gallery.
Serendipity, it seems, finds Coonelly at just the right moments. When she moved to New Hope, it appeared again in the form of a neighbor’s gift: a statue of Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, who is intimately tied to the very novena that Coonelly grew up praying with her grandmother.
“A neighbor down the block just happened to come in, and he was like, ‘I really like what you’re doing with this. I think this is something this area needs,’” she recalls. “And he was like, ‘I have these statues that I don’t think my son would appreciate, would you have them?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ So when he gave me Saint Gabriel, and he gave me our Blessed Mother to go with my collection – wait I have to tell you about Woodstock Jesus,” she interjects, getting sidetracked by her Sacred Heart of Jesus statute.
“But, I learned it was Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows,” she says, laughing at the fortuitousness of it all. “Everybody wants to think it’s the archangel, and it’s like Saint Gabriel not archangel. It was so profound because he was dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows.”
Statues of Saint Gabriel and Our Lady of Mount Carmel that were gifted to Coonelly by her neighbor.
Coonelly then rises excitedly, walks over to the small army of statutes perched behind her, and picks up her Sacred Heart of Jesus statue.
Much like the arrival of the Saint Gabriel statue in Coonelly’s life, the Sacred Heart statue also appeared with an equally uncanny sense of timing. Coonelly calls the statue “Woodstock Jesus.”
About a year ago, Coonelly, her kids, and her sister stumbled upon the statue in the middle of a deserted parking lot in Woodstock, New York while visiting the Catskills. It was the eighth anniversary of her grandmother’s passing, and the statue was casually perched on top of a wooden post as if it had been waiting for them.
“We’re walking to the car, and I’m like, ‘Patty, do you see this?’ Coonelly recalls. “And she’s like, ‘Is that…is that Jesus?’ And the kids were like, ‘It’s JESUS!’ So we all ran over. Mind you, we are still the only car in the parking lot. The statue was not there when we got there,” she insists.
The timing was anything but random. “We had been talking all morning about my grandmother and how she loved Sacred Heart Jesus the most and would always talk about Sacred Heart Jesus. And we were like, ‘I think grandmom wants us to have this, like this is grandmom. Grandmom gave us Jesus.’”
Coonelly with Woodstock Jesus.
“Through prayer, anything is possible.”
Though sacred art has become Coonelly’s signature, her creative reach also embraces pop art (think paintings of Revlon lipsticks from the 1950s, Dolly Parton covered in glitter, and Original Barbie donning her iconic black and white striped swimsuit).
Coonelly’s pop art has even found its way into the collections of Blake Lively and Christian Siriano.
“I just did a lipstick painting!” Coonelly exclaims when I prod her about her pop art. “It’s like the cutest little thing you’ll ever see.” She then gets up and motions for me to follow her to her studio.
Upstairs, pink walls cradle Hail Marys in various stages of production. Coonelly’s work station is a vibrant chaos of colorful paint splatters, brushes soaking in water-filled cups, and an array of other art supplies waiting to be called into action.
An 8” x 10” painting of six lipsticks in shiny gold containers sits on the table next to the vintage Revlon lipsticks that Coonelly sourced from eBay to create the painting.
Coonelly pulls one of the real lipsticks – Revlon’s non-smear Queen of Diamonds from the 1950s – off of the desk and twists it open to reveal a deep shade of red.
“Don’t wear it ‘cuz it’s moldy,” she laughs as she hands me the lipstick. “But it can still be painted. It’s just fun.”
Above: Coonelly’s collection of vintage lipsticks. Below: Scenes from Coonelly’s studio.
Given that the lipstick painting is the only pop art piece in Coonelly’s studio, it doesn’t take long for our conversation to gravitate back towards the walls of Hail Marys that surround us.
“This is the work that calls me and inspires me,” Coonelly says of her sacred art. “The thing I love about Mary is that she’s universal. I have Jewish people buy her from me. I have Islamic people buy her from me. There is not a certain denomination that shies away from appreciating the narrative, the anchor, and the icon that is the Blessed Virgin Mary.”
We then walk back down to the gallery, where I ask Coonelly which Hail Mary is her favorite. She points to one of the large pink ones on the back wall. “I’ve had a hard time even suggesting letting it go,” she admits. “It almost feels like, ‘Okay it’s the morning, I’m cooking breakfast and having my toast, don’t forget your Hail Mary.’ Like she’s buttering toast, but she’s still coming through.”
As I pack up my things and prepare to leave, it feels like I’m about to step out of a dream.
“Hold on! Hold on! You’re not going yet!” Coonelly exclaims.
She then rushes back into her gallery and grabs a hot pink 5” x 7” Hail Mary for me to take home - something to hold me over while I eagerly await the completion of the piece I commissioned from her.
Holding the canvas in my hands, I feel the same quiet insistence that I initially felt emanating from Coonelly’s 48” x 60” statement piece the first time I passed by her gallery just a few weeks earlier. It’s a gentle, unassuming nudge that calls me to pause, reflect on my faith, and say a quick prayer of thanksgiving.
