about me
Sharon Killian's work melds the figurative and the abstract in a process that provides the artistic and aesthetic tension that feeds her creativity as an "art for art's sake" devotee. It also provides a sense of connectedness to the work as random viewers are drawn closer to her paintings seeking familiarity in the subject matter. The subject matter includes swaths of views of the sky during sunset and sunrise, of fog intertwined with the valley forests and laid between the crevasses of the lower Boston Mountains that surround us in Northwest Arkansas. As viewers take an intimate study of the images, questions are posed as to the medium (even as the labels state its fact), formal aspects of the closely juxtaposed or floating shapes, sometimes linear or planar interruptions to the illusion of depth and three dimensionality, the once familiar image devolves into pieces of color and pieces of shapes that are singularly defined.
Sharon Killian lives on the edge of a hill on the White River just east of Fayetteville, Arkansas, where the skyscape and landscape views fuel her work. She currently teaches an art education course in the Department of Art at the University of Arkansas, is president of the Fayetteville Art Alliance a nonprofit arts institution, and president of the Northwest Arkansas African American Heritage Association. Sharon also farms pasture raised cattle. Killian immigrated to Harlem, New York from Jamaica, West Indies as a girl and spent her formative years in the museums and galleries in Manhattan where she gained a respect for her affinity to the line as an artistic element. She is a graduate of the University of Rochester in New York, worked for a large medical education nonprofit in Washington, DC, was a teacher of art in a DC private school, and was a mentor for youth through art before relocating with her husband to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Sharon Killian's work can be found in several private and corporate collections including Tyson Foods, the University of Arkansas, and Northwest Arkansas Community College.
