Megan Taylor Forrest is a visual artist and documentary photographer based in Mid-Missouri. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri in 2025. Working primarily through photography, Forrest's practice moves between documentary and surreal approaches, often centering portraits and environments that carry a sense of melancholy, vulnerability, and emotional tension. During her time as a student, Forrest’s work was included in six local and national exhibitions and was nominated and selected for the Tim Williams Scholarship for Lifelong Learning.

At the core of Forrest's practice is an interest in the tension between hope and despair and in the ways individuals are understood through the environments and circumstances that shape their lives. Her work challenges perceptions of people who are often defined by their surroundings, histories, or perceived circumstances, creating space for the individual beyond the assumptions attached to them. Through intimate encounters with people and place, Forrest seeks to humanize experiences that are often viewed through distance, stigma, or dehumanizing narratives.

Her practice is rooted in a personal understanding of communities shaped by poverty, addiction, violence, and other forms of social hardship. Rather than separating the individual from these circumstances, Forrest is interested in the complexities that emerge when personal identity intersects with environment, history, and social perception. Her work holds space for both the weight of suffering and the possibility of hope.

Forrest's current documentary project, which has not yet been shared with the public, examines how faith and identity are navigated within a maximum-security men's prison. Through sustained photographic engagement with incarcerated men and their environment, the project documents the presence and practice of faith within a highly controlled and often stigmatized setting.