Kaitlin Grace McSweeney Verified listing

The narrative of the present begins in the senses: the cool air brushing nostrils as you exhale, the itch of a mosquito bite, a hunger pang, a bird song, a lingering taste of coffee or the salt of a tear, the smell of jasmine on a nearby ledge. Each of these is simple, yet they are a gateway to complexity: stories, experiences, all the associations we might have with coffee or jasmine or tears sprout up. The practice of unfolding with myself will be one I carry for the rest of my life, and my work is sourced in this unfolding.  As such my mediums, my subject matter, even my styles are always shifting yet always contain the tone of my particular voice, which cannot be hidden or eradicated from anything that comes from me.

Womens' bodies hold immense power: the power to grow and give birth to another life, the power of resilience in the face of oppression, and has held a symbolic power that goes back to earliest recorded history. This power has invoked awe and fear, the inspiration to worship and protect as well as the compulsion to control and destroy.  My journey with my own woman-body has taken be through the long hallways of our collective past as well as my own personal labyrinths, seeking a true, intimate merge with myself, one in which I am not fragmented by fear and compulsion to control, whether my own internalized version of this or that which comes towards me from external sources.  My visual art is often figure and landscape oriented, teasing out the stories of bodies, which if listened to carefully always whisper to me "you aren't alone".

Exhibitions/Installations/Performances

2023
Noisepop Summer of Music Festival, featured performer, San Francisco, Ca. June - September.
2022
Pupila Film Festival, Best Soundtrack, Best Experimental Short, Best Original Concept for "Hungry Ghost", a collaboration with animator Guido Devadder.
Hallucinea Film Festival, Special Mention for "Hungry Ghost".
2021
Patterns and Symmetry, San Francisco Women Artists group exhibition, San Francisco, Ca. March-April.
2019
Performance with SCLork at Dolby Labs in San Francisco, Ca. March.
Performance with SCLork at Linux Audio Conference, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Ca. March.
Small Works Invitational Exhibition, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Berkeley, Ca. April.
Performance with SCLork at Garden of Memory at Chapel of the Chimes, Mountain View Cemetary, Piedmont, Ca. June.
2018
Can You Hear Me Now? Group Exhibition of Women Artists, Abrams Claghorn Gallery, Berkeley, Ca. June.
Certificate of Completion, Supercollider Workshop, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Ca. August.
Joined SCLork (Santa Clara University Laptop Orchestra), an ensemble that combines live coding, recording and video to create original electronic compositions and improvisation, September.
2017
Poet’s Reading the News: This is Not a Reality Party, participating performer. Collaboration with Claire Tompkins combining a reading of current events with performance of baroque opera. Private Venue. San Francisco, Ca. October.
Started voice study with Jane Randolph, San Francisco Conservatory of Music. April.
2016
Screening of Leatherback, original animated music video for an original song by May Oskan of the band Storm Door. PianoFight, San Francisco, Ca. November.
2015
Solo Exhibition, Cloverdale Pop-Up Gallery, Healdsburg, Ca. August.
Solo Exhibition, Kilovolt Coffee, Oakland, Ca. October-November.
2013
Featured Artist at Jumpin’ Java Café, San Francisco, Ca. February-March.
Glyph at Art Ark Gallery, part of group exhibition. San Jose, Ca. April.
Mixed Media Arts Mixer, Firehouse Collective. Berkeley, Ca. September.
2012
Stage Design and Art Direction for Mana Maddy Album Release: Another Trip Around the Sun. Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Church, Berkeley, Ca. June.
Live Painting Demonstration on models and exhibition of paintings at The Yerba Buena Project, The Pallet Space in Emeryville, Ca. September.
Voice Mentor at San Francisco City College with Professor Judy Hubbell, September-December.
2011
In the Forest, Interactive Environmental Installation, The Art Thou Gallery, Berkeley, Ca. April – May.
Live Painting with the Something Something Quartet at the Jazzschool, Berkeley, Ca. August.
Project Ion with Fivepoints Arthouse, interactive event featuring a process created by Kaitlin McSweeney and Adam Rygiol called “video-canvas” involving the combination of digitally animated art projected onto a canvas used as a painting ground. The resultant painting is a record of her perception, rather than a record of an external object. The process reflects the role of an individual’s perception in the process of visual translation. The event will have a figure drawing portion, a performance by Adam and Kaitlin of the video-canvas process, and live musical performances throughout. Fivepoints Arthouse, San Francisco, Ca. November.
2009
23HAM (House of Art and Multimedia): Event Coordinator, Resident Artist. Berkeley, Ca.
Featured Artist and Producer of MAMA: Meet Artists Manifest Autonomy, hosted by 23HAM, Berkeley, Ca. May.
Pro Arts East Bay Open Studios, 23HAM, Berkeley, Ca. June.
Live Painting onstage with Judgement Day, The Independent, San Francisco, Ca. October.
Leda and the Egrets, full room mural completed in North Berkeley Residence, November.
Dollhouse group show, ARC Gallery and Studios, San Francisco, Ca. December – January.
Stage Design and Art Direction for Judgement Day and Foxtails Brigade Parlour Series Concerts, Flux 53, Oakland, Ca December.
2007
De Young Museum, Art for All: A Tribute to Gilbert and George College Night at the De Young Museum, San Francisco, Ca. February-May.

Education and Certifications

B.A. Mass Communications, University of California Berkeley, 2007.
Voice Mentor, San Francisco City College, 2012.
Yoga Instructor Ceritfication, 200 hr. Yoga Alliance, 2012.