Unlike the surface of the waters, which are sensitive to every gust of wind, which know day and night, respond to the pull of sun and moon, and change as the seasons change, the deep waters are the place where change comes slowly, if at all. Down beyond the reach of the sun's rays, there is no alternation between light and darkness. There is rather an upending night, as old as the sea itself. The Sea Around Us, Rachel Carson

Megan Biddle is a multimedia artist whose practice encompasses sculpture, drawing and printmaking. She creates experiment and process driven work with an affinity toward glass and other state changing materials. Her focus on the seductive qualities of materials creates a point of connection for the viewer to counter the fast-paced technology driven culture we live in. This tactility feels vital in a digital age where human connection and our relationship with nature is not always prioritized. As an admirer of nature, her work reflects on geologic time, rhythms of the sea and earth, the human body and its relationship to the natural world. 

The exhibition's namesake, Phantom Bottom is a phenomenon that occurs in the ocean when millions of marine organisms form a density that can be mistaken for the bottom of the sea. This occurrence baffled sonar operators in the mid-century as the ocean floor seemed to become deeper during the day and rise at night. To create one series of works in the show, Future Relics, Biddle rocks a press mold back and forth in the sand to carve a topography that mimics the ocean floor. The cavity is filled with molten glass and the resulting peaks and valleys work together to form an individual casting, recalling a fingerprint.

Jewels of the Sea or diatoms are unicellular algae found in all natural bodies of water. Their cell walls are made of silica and are imperceptible to the naked eye. Paradoxically their colorful blooms are visible from space appearing in colonies as ribbons, fans, zigzags, or stars. Isolation, suspension, gravity, and weightlessness are fossilized into the works Bloom or Bust, a series of small colorful pate de verre glass castings inspired by the diatom. 

The work in this show embodies the mystery of the deep sea, which Biddle uses as a metaphor for solitude, extinction, the depths of the human mind and our relationship with the planet. 

Megan Biddle has attended residencies at Macdowell, The Jentel Foundation, The Creative Glass Center of America, Sculpture Space, The Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Pilchuck Glass School, Northlands Creative Glass in Scotland, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and Mass MOCA. She has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including XO Projects INC., Side Show, The Islip Art Museum and the Everson Art Museum in New York; the Reynolds Gallery Richmond, VA.; Space 1026, Philadelphia Art Alliance in Philadelphia, PA.; Urban Arts Space Columbus OH.; Galerie VSUP in the Czech Republic; and the 700IS Experimental Film Festival in Iceland. Her work was acquired into the American Embassy’s permanent collection in Riga, Latvia. She has taught at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Pilchuck Glass School, Urban Glass, Oxbow School of Art and currently teaches as an adjunct professor in the Glass Program at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture. She was the Co-Director and is a current member of Tiger Strikes Asteroid Gallery in Philadelphia, PA. where she lives and works. She has been coming to Truro, where grandfather bought a house in the mid1940s, her whole life.