About:
Kathleen Buchanan has had a life-long interest in creating art. She attended Tufts University in Medford, MA from 1989 to 1993, where she majored in biology and nurtured her creative skills with extensive studio classes at Tufts and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She began printing in 1995 while attending graduate school at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, AK. Under the guidance of professor Todd Sherman, she developed her appreciation of traditional print media, concentrating her focus on both wood and linoleum blocok printing. Upon completion of her Master's degree in wildlife biology, Kathleen attended Heartwood College of Art in Kennebunkport, ME for a year-long independent study in relief printmaking. During this time, she was able to concentrate on developing her imagery, which reflects her love for the natural world and education in the biological sciences.
At the end of her independent study at Heartwood College, Kathleen moved to Seattle, WA where she joined the Pressworks Printmaking Collective and began work for Daniel Smith Artist Materials, Inc. During her time in Seattle, she participated in solo and group gallery exhibitions, completed several private commissions, attended major west coast arts festivals, and taught several courses in printmaking. At Pressworks, she revisited printing collagraphs, and began to combine relief blocks with collagraph printing to create unique multiple-block images. The textures and subtleties of a collagraph print work well with Kathleen's subjects, allowing the viewer a brief, soft glimpse into the lives of animals and landscapes she wishes to illuminate.
In January of 2003, Kathleen returned to the coast of Maine and established her studio, Grey Seal Press, in Boothbay Harbor. She continues to concentrate on collagraph and relief printing, and occasionally explores monoprinting with found natural objects such as leaves and feathers. She was recently awarded a grant from the Amity Art Foundation to travel to the southwest coast of Ireland and create a body of work from this experience. She spent part of the summer of 2003 in County Kerry doing field designs, and is currently creating the finished body of prints. In addition to this project, Kathleen is focusing on creating images of seals and sea birds, inspired by her interactions with these animals both on the west coast and on the coast of Maine.
Grey Seal Press is located in Boothbay Harbor, ME. For information on where to view her art or to join her mailing list, please contact the artist at the above address or phone number.
Artist's Statement:
As an artist, I am most fascinated by the relationship between the human observer and the natural world. My education in the biological sciences has given me an appreciation for the instant of recognition between observer and subject. It is during those moments when a profile, pattern, or gesture reveals identity and yields understanding that my connection to my environment feels most complete. I seek to extend those moments with my images, and to foster this sense of recognition and connection for the viewer of my work. I feel the collagraph medium is well-suited to this task- I try to retain shadowy intricacies and textures that encourage the viewer to look carefully and fully at the image, and ultimately leave the piece with the sense that a small mystery has been revealed to them.
