Living with Dying: Grief, Loss, Beauty and Joy
Nothing can undo me from you, Digital print on Moab Entrada Rag paper
12.75 x 18.75 inches, 2020
Kathleen O'Connell was born and raised in Plattsburgh, NY. She is an educator, printmaker, book artist, type and lettering enthusiast, pre-pandemic traveler, intra-pandemic mother, amateur garden grower, perpetual organizer and former ferry boat deckhand, all of which inform her artworks and artistic practice. She is a tenured Associate Professor (Print Media) in the Middle Tennessee State University Department of Art and Design. She holds a BFA degree from SUNY Plattsburgh and MFA degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She lives in Murfreesboro, Tennessee with her blended family.
Kathleen O'Connell
About Nothing can undo me from you Kathleen writes:
Text and pattern as mantra and meditation. Part of my artistic practice is to collect/generate texts and patterns that evoke a dream state—to create a space where one is still, but very much alive—a strange occupation of the familiar. This print is part of a series of three total prints. The series explores my own in/ability to come to terms with death, to sit with grief, to find beauty in life/death and whatever planes are in between/beyond. Here, I specifically address the death of my dear friend, our bond both before and after his death, and the belief that love still extends between us—that there is no end to it.