Joanne Kerrihard received her BA in Asian Studies in 1979 at the University of Arizona, after studying Chinese in Hong Kong at New Asian-Yale in China, University of Hong Kong. In 1988 she received her MFA in Painting from the University of Arizona.

Kerrihard began painting full time in 1990 after a four month tour through Europe. In 1992 she received two painting fellowships from the Arizona Commission on the Arts and the Tucson Pima Arts Council. In 1998 she received a second painting fellowship from Tucson Pima Arts Council. Her work was selected for a solo exhibition at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts in 1993, and she was the recipient of the prestigious Stonewall Foundation Series award with a solo exhibition at the Tucson Museum of Art in 2000. Other solo exhibitions include galleries in Chicago, Denver, Scottsdale and Tucson.

Her work has been written about in Art in America and featured in American Art Collector and New American Painting #54. Reviews on her work have been published in Colorado and Arizona.

Statement October 2007

I continue to use water as a visual and conceptual platform to stage my painting. I am interested in perceptions of depth and space, with a parallel desire for fresh narratives.

As I begin a new set of canvases I doubt my process and second-guess almost every move. It doesn't seem engaging or valid to revisit what has already been done. The only thing I don't question is water as the principle image, but I'm often skeptical of the inclination to return to the previous concepts (stages, sirens, pink boats) or images (fish, fruit, boats, tall ships, and now ducks and geese). Feeling restless, I put pressure on myself to reinvent everything.

Eventually I move through the doubt, allowing myself to return to familiar themes and repeated images. Then, in the moment of pure painting, something takes a new direction landing me right where I desire to be, a place where everything feels completely new.

In this new selection of paintings ducks and geese take a prominent roll in a variety of settings. The first duck arrived as the last image in "Wood Duck at Ship Wreck". I feel that it landed on the water as if inviting itself to participate in my dialogue with the work. And with that startling appearance, I co-opted the duck and goose as new participants to occupy a landscape or direct the narrative.

— Joanne Kerrihard

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

EDUCATION

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