Bio
Kathleen Koopman’s work for the past several years has focused on boxes, frames, books and constructions, assembling found objects, rust, maps, found paper, old photographs, and plants. Her process is to create a narrative with memories and dreams intertwined. She has been exploring the many metaphors we associate with plants, boats and birds, creating dreamlike installations.
Part collector, part archivist, part archeologist, and part researcher, Kathleen delights in the randomly found, studies and researches things, arranges and organizes, then displays and photographs, visually exploring their past and provenance.
Currently living in Silver City, New Mexico, Kathleen was born in New York City; she attended C.W. Post College, Long Island University, earning both a Bachelor’s and Masters in Fine Arts.
After a career in book design and illustration, she taught art for 12 years; she now devotes her time to being the studio and putting together all the collections she has amassed over the years.
Resume
Education
1976 Bachelors of Fine Art, C.W. Post College, Long Island University
1978 Masters of Fine Arts, C.W. Post College, Long Island University
Group Shows
2013 Dias de Los Muertos. Tohono Chul Gallery
2014 Hit the Road! Tohono Chul Gallery
2014 Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul Gallery
2015 Taking Flight: Birds in Art. Tohono Chul Gallery
2015 Dias de Los Muertos. Tohono Chul Gallery
2015 Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul Gallery
2015 Arte de Avian, Tubac Center of the Arts
2015 Sonoran Desert: Large and Small, Tohono Chul Gallery
2015 Tumamoc Hill: Art, Culture, and Science, Tohono Chul
2015 Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul Gallery
2016 Arizona Aqueous XXX, Tubac Center of the Arts
2016 Shaped by Hand, PaperWorks, Tohono Chul Gallery
2016 Lotería de Tucson, Galeria Senita
2017 Re-Emergence 2, Tucson Artists Group, Temple Gallery
2017 Arrivals and Departures, Tucson International Airport
2017 Dias de Los Muertos. Tohono Chul Gallery
2017 Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul Gallery
2017 Recuerdos de Mascotas, Galeria Senita
2017 Glow! Triangle L Ranch, Oracle
2018 PaperWorks Exhibition, Roche Tissue Diagnostics
2019 Lotería de Tucson, Galeria Senita
2019 Small Works Invitational, Tohono Chul Gallery
2020 On the Desert. The Discovery and Invention of Color, Tohono Chul
2020 Provocation of Place, a juried Exhibition of work by Tucson-based Paperworks,
Light Art Space, Silver City, NM
2021 Visions of Nature, contemporary views in alternative photographic techniques.
Light Art Space, Silver City, NM
2021 Bound, Southwest Print Fiesta, Light Art Space, Silver City, NM
2022 Color, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC
Two Person Shows
2014 Found, Petroglyphs Gallery
2015 Hunting/Gathering: Time and Materials, Rain Crow Gallery
2020 Found Rust Assemblage, 2-person show, Galeria Senita
Publications
2015 Journal of the Southwest, Summer-Autumn 2015. The Tumamoc Hill Arts Initiative, pp. 281–288
2014 Zocalo Magazine, June, 2014, Tumamoc Artistic Inspiration, pp. 14-15
2013 This Piece of Earth, Images and Words from Tumamoc Hill, pp. 11, 28, 35
2018 A Sense of Place, PaperWorks Journal, Winter, pp. 9-12
Related Experience
Book Designer/Illustrator, Art Teaching, 2001-2012, Amphitheater SD,
Museum Exhibition Design: early 2000’s at the Arizona State Museum full time for a few years and then later in 2008-11 I free-lanced for my former boss (Russell Varineau) at the Museum who retired but was still very active in Exhibit Design. Two of our largest projects were at Tonto National Monument and Fort Davis National Historic Site
