Word for Word contains a selection of text-based prints, artist’s books and works on paper. Part in the image of a somnambulist, part autobiographical, and part of regular creative practice, the exhibition features texts collected from messages, conversations, books, news and translations that were misunderstood or reinterpreted with sentiment, to evoke a meditative state, where one is still, but very much alive; strangely occupying the familiar.

Kathleen O’Connell 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.

O’Connell is known for her prints, artist’s books and other works on paper that implement rich colors, patterns, text and forms all with attention to detail. Her works celebrate, meditate upon or evoke a foreign occupation of the familiar. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is part of the collections at the University of California–Berkeley, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Vanderbilt University, Yale and the Target Corporation, among others.

For more information visit www.kathleenoconnell.net