DVAA Member since 2022
Kathleen Beausoleil
Artists website:
About:
Kathleen Beausoleil is a visual artist, primarily using oil paint and ink. Her realist works focus on what it means to be a social being.
She was a member of The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program and has attended Artist in Residency programs including the Cuttyhunk Island Artist Residency, Chalk Hill Artist Residency and the Artist *Forests* Community Program sponsored by the Holter Museum of Art and Helena National Forest.
Kathleen's work is in the permanent collection of The Art Museum of Missoula and private collections throughout the United States. Kathleen taught at the SUNY Empire State’s Studio Semester program. She received her BFA Cum Laude at Syracuse University.
Kathleen is a resident of Fair Haven, New Jersey.
Artist Statement:
My work, primarily oil on canvas or panel, explores human social interaction and the territorial behaviors that operate in crowds. Following in the tradition of social realism my suburbian series captures the crowds I encounter in my life, on my journey as an artist and mother, being on the sidelines watching at a swim meet, ski hill, or PNC Art Center. What fascinates me is how people organize. Often it is the spaces between people that define their relationships. One observation my work shows is that social distancing in pods existed prior to the pandemic. This provides me comfort as I move forward and try to make sense of the pandemic.
We like to think of ourselves as having conspicuously unique personalities. Yet, if we take a closer look, it’s pretty clear that we are deeply social pack animals, biologically programmed for social interaction, and territorial behavior. There is a sense of liberty in anonymity, a safety in getting lost in the crowd.
How people behave in public is very telling about the culture they live in. Observing these groups can help give us a better understanding of our place in our culture. Even our individual expressions only appear acceptable or distasteful within the context of a larger community of organized and accepted social norms. I find it important to observe how and with whom people interact. My personal observation is that people need other people, their own people, to be happy, accepted, and fulfilled. We also need other people to project our grievances and, at times, rally around a common enemy. It is a sense of belonging that people seek both in our microcosmic home lives and within our macrocosmic social lives.
Exhibition at DVAA:
