School’s Out
Kathleen Beausoleil
Oil on canvas
2023
includes certificate of authenticity
The primary medium, and subject /content of the paintings is oil on canvas or panel, that explores human social interaction and territorial drivers of crowd behavior. At the core is a fascination with how people organize. Often it is the spaces between people that define their relationships. We consider ourselves as having conspicuously unique personalities. Yet, if one takes a closer look, it is clear that there exists a pack mentality programmed into our social interaction, and territorial behavior. There is a sense of liberty in anonymity; a safety in getting lost in the crowd. How people behave in public is very telling about the culture they live in. Observing these groups can help give us a better understanding of our place in our culture. Even our individual expressions only appear acceptable or distasteful within the context of a larger community of organized and accepted social norms. It is with this premise that observations for the subject are made with the realization that people need other people, their own people, to be happy, accepted, and fulfilled. We also need other people to project our grievances and , at times, rally around a common enemy. It is a sense of belonging that people seek both in our microcosmic home lives and within our macrocosmic social lives.
Kathleen Beausoleil lives and works in Fair Haven, NJ. Primarily working in oil paint, her works focus on what it means to be a social being. Beausoleil received a 2022 Fellowship from the NJ Council of the Arts; was a member of The Drawing Center’s Viewing Program and has been an Artist in Residence at programs including the Cuttyhunk Artist Residency (twice), ArtLab, Chalk Hill Artist Residency, Da Vinci Art Alliance and the Artist Forests Community Program sponsored by the Holter Museum of Art and Helena National Forest. She recently had her first solo show at the Monmouth Museum and is 2023-2024 finalist for the Center for Emerging Visual Arts Fellowship. Beausoleil’s work is in the permanent collection of The Art Museum of Missoula, Fidelity Investment Corp and numerous private collections. She has also taught at the SUNY Empire State’s Studio Semester program. She received her BFA Cum Laude at Syracuse University.
