Kathleen Shanahan

Artist Statement

Kathleen Shanahan is a figurative artist whose mixed-media work explores the reconciliation of opposites, dualities, and unexpected relationships. Drawing from both observation and imagination, she creates images that move between figuration and abstraction, often beginning with a visual puzzle that develops through experimentation with form, scale, texture, and composition.

Her works combine materials such as paint, pastel, plaster, printmaking, handmade paper, and collage. Shanahan is drawn to the contrasting physical qualities of materials as well as the associations created when unrelated objects are placed together. Familiar forms can take on new meanings when their scale, function, or context is altered.

Influenced in part by her research in Japan and an interest in the coexistence of opposites, Shanahan embraces ambiguity and visual tension. Her compositions hold disparate elements in suspension, allowing viewers to create their own connections and interpretations. For Shanahan, the process of making is itself a journey into unknown territory, where experimentation and discovery are central to the work.

www.kathleenshanahan.com | Instagram: @kathleenshanahan11

Biography

Kathleen Shanahan is a painter, printmaker, and mixed-media artist based in Wichita, Kansas. Her practice combines figurative imagery with abstraction and incorporates painting, drawing, printmaking, collage, and experimental mixed-media processes.

Shanahan received her BFA from the University of Michigan in 1969 and her MFA from the University of Arizona in 1976. She has taught at colleges and universities throughout the United States, including Wichita State University, Columbia College, the University of Kansas, Lane Community College, Cochise College, and Eastern Arizona College.

Her artistic career has included exhibitions and research in the United States, Japan, France, and Hong Kong. In 1981–82, she was a visiting scholar at the National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan, where she conducted grant-funded research into Japanese folk art and modern manifestations of Japanese aesthetics. She has also completed residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, Hot Springs National Park, and the Riley-Strauss Printmaking Studio in Wellfleet, Massachusetts.

Shanahan’s work has been exhibited at museums, galleries, and cultural institutions including the Wichita Art Museum, Cedar Rapids Art Museum, Springfield Art Museum, Strecker-Nelson Gallery, Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, and Viridian Artists in New York. Her work is held in numerous public, corporate, and private collections, including the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas, Wichita Art Museum, Hot Springs National Park, and the Southern Graphics Council Print Archives.

Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Forty-Four Kansas Artists: A Kansas Collection, Artists in Their Studios, and Sarah Riley’s Practical Mixed Media Printmaking. She has received numerous awards, grants, purchase awards, and artist residencies throughout her career.