The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Bio
Kathy L. McGhee,
works at the Columbus College of Art & Design.
There she a professor in fine arts, and Chair of Fine Arts and Craft. She teaches introductory, intermediate and advanced printmaking. These include relief, serigraphy, lithography, and intaglio. McGhee, who has shown her work both nationally and internationally, is a practicing printmaker who has had her work published in Printmakers Today. McGhee received the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s International Residency Award in 2005 and traveled to Germany. In 2010, she was a participant in the Xi’an International Printmaking Workshop held at Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts in China, and in 2012, she received an international residency through the Ohio Arts Council. In 2019, she was an artist in residence at the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and also at the Badlands National Park, South Dakota.
She has a BS in plant biology, Ohio State University, 1997; BFA in drawing and painting, Ohio State University, 1997; MFA in printmaking, Ohio State University, 2000.
Artist Statement
In my work, I have been interested in exploring social interactions and activities as well as self-realizations, and calling into question ideas and associations regarding our interaction with the world, each other, and how we perceive ourselves. My own background, as an individual raised in rural Ohio, has greatly influenced the manner in which I have depicted these ideas – I frequently use images of animals, the occasional household item, landscape and other natural elements. By doing these explorations indirectly through the use of these objects/characters and allowing them to interact in a tableau having the feeling of being a frozen moment from a story, I find that I am able to create meaningful interactions between viewers and the works. The viewers may insert themselves and their experiences into the metaphor they see before them. The characters I have been selecting and incorporating in my prints have inherently carried many associations since they are tied to nature, landscape, and situations that may be encountered there, but I have been using them further as vessels to symbolize our own human traits and interests.
Indirectly through the use of stories and images, people can see and observe themselves in a new light. We have been exposed to fables, parables, myths, and stories with hidden meanings and depth all of our lives. This ability to assimilate ourselves into a story or image and to discover hidden meaning is something with which I have been experimenting for some time. I have found that even the visual textures created in some of my photogravure works become relics of the imagination. The significance of this and what it means in regard to how we think, perceive ourselves, and how we interact with others is of great interest to me.
