Biography
Born in Galway, Ireland, in 1968 Rian Kerrane received her BA in Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ulster at Belfast in 1991. She located to the United States in 1994 and earned her MFA from the University of New Orleans in 1997. Currently residing in Denver, Colorado, Kerrane is Assistant Professor and Area Head for the Sculpture Program at the University of Colorado Denver.
A noted sculptor in cast iron and diverse other materials, Kerrane’s recent installations reframe and reconsider the anti-modern medievalist aesthetic of artist/designers like William Morris, which privilege pattern, grace and the primacy of the handmade object.
Her work represents the social constructs applied to control personal environments. In a politically charged society where traditions continue to metamorphose she investigates the female position in domestic and social situations.
She is an advocate for the arts and believes that art and education are uniquely associated. Kerrane presented a paper on sculpture curriculum and The Traditional Cast Object as Subjective Conceptual Metaphor for the College Art Association conference in Los Angeles in 2009. She was pivotal in the development of the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance and hosting the inaugural Western Cast Iron Art Conference in Denver in 2008. Kerrane’s work has shown in sculpture gardens and galleries in the United States, Italy, Mexico and Ireland. She is preparing work for exhibition in Austria in 2009 and recently she exhibited in Ireland during the Earagial Arts Festival and at the Florence Biennale, Italy. Prior to that she has shown at JUST Sculpture Tour, Jackson, Tennessee. She was awarded Peoples Choice for her work exhibited in Art at Northlake Park, Orlando, Florida in 2004 and received both Best of Show and the Peoples Choice Award in the 2nd Annual Florida Outdoor Sculpture Competition in 2002. Returning to Ireland in 1999 and 2002 respectively, Kerrane was artist in residence at Cosan Glas, an environmental sculpture trail, and at the Flax Art Studio’s International Residency Programme in Belfast. She co-designed and teaches a cross-disciplinary, site-specific art course as a summer programme for the Burren College of Art in County Clare, Ireland.
Kerrane collaborated on an installation series titled The Deluge Series from 2000 -2007. Exhibited widely, The Deluge Series showed at the 2001 Biennial at Atlanta’s Contemporary Art Center and in 2002 at the Engine Room Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland, Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado in 2005, SPACES Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio, 2006. 2006 also saw Kerrane participate in Edge va a Mexico at the Centro Cultural, Casa Borda, Taxco, Mexico and present at Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas, University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico.
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