Margaret Kilgallen was
born in 1967 in Washington, D.C. and received her BA in printmaking
from Colorado College in 1989. Early experiences as a librarian
and bookbinder contribute to her encyclopedic knowledge of signs
drawn from American folk tradition, printmaking, and letterpress.
Kilgallen has a love of “things that show the evidence of the
human hand.” Painting directly on the wall, Kilgallen creates
room-size murals that recall a time when personal craft and handmade
signs were the dominant
aesthetic. Strong, independent women walking,
surfing, fighting, and biking feature prominently in the artist’s
compositions. Her work has been shown at Deitch Projects and the
Drawing Room in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the
Luggage Store in San Francisco, the Forum for Contemporary Art in
St. Louis, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Kilgallen’s
work was recently presented at the UCLA/Armand Hammer Museum. She
died in June 2001 in San Francisco, where she lived with her husband,
Barry McGee.
For additional biographic & bibliographic information:
Deitch Projects, New York | Wikipedia
Margaret Kilgallen on the Art21 blog |
