International Women's Day-Margaret Kilgallen

As it's International Womens Day today, i thought it would be nice to feature one of my favorite female artists, Margeret Kilgallen, whose work, amongst others proved a real inspiration to me.
Margaret Kilgallen was an American artist, whose paintings and murals reflected a variety of influences, including the dying art of hand-painted signs, elements of American folk art, mural painting, and a variety of formal painting strategies. At an early age, she was impressed by examples of works by Southwest and Mexican artists, and she employed these artists' use of warm colors in her own painting. Her many works in gouache and acrylic on found paper (often discarded book end papers) reflect an interest in typographic styles and symbology that can be traced to her work as a book conservator with Dan Flanagan at the San Francisco Public Library in the early to mid-1990s.
Margaret died in 2001, at age 33, from complications of breast cancer three weeks after the birth of Asha, her daughter with her husband and collaborator Barry McGee. Kilgallen has since been the subject of several posthumous retrospectives.

Margaret's work has been such an inspiration for me, her bold use of images and text used in unusual settings. I hope it continues to inspire young women and artists in generations to come.


"I believe there need to be women visual in our every day landscape, working hard and doing their own thing, whether you like it or not, whether it's acceptable or not...I especially hope to inspire young women because often I feel like so much emphasis is put on how beautiful you are, and how thin you are, and not a lot of emphasis is put on what you can do and how smart you are. I'd like to change that, change the emphasis of what's important when looking at a woman."- Margaret Kilgallen