Kara Krieger-McGhee

Kara Krieger-McGhee’s natural gift and dream to be an artist were born into her; but she set the dream aside—choosing to raise a family. In 2001 she picked up a paintbrush and painted a bird. Her first painting in 18 years was chosen as a finalist in the Animal Art category of The Artist Magazine and was featured in the Competition Spotlight section of the 2001 August issue. The painting was also chosen as one of the Top 200 in the 2001 Arts for the Parks competition; reaffirming her natural gift and reawakening the dream.

It wasn’t until 2006 that she was able to quit her full-time executive assistant job to live the dream, thanks to her husband’s backing and encouragement. However, instead of painting on canvas she climbed onto a literal ladder and started her own business creating custom faux finishes and murals; receiving commissions for several large public murals, 25’x100’ the largest, and countless murals in private homes. In 2011 she took William Cochran’s Trompe L’Oeil Master Program and completed all three levels. Once she was armed with a “formal education” and an understanding of color theory she felt empowered to paint what she loved—realism. In her spare time she worked at developing a signature style, testing each prototype in the dark waters of juried shows and competitions, eventually creating a cohesive body of work.

In April of 2014, she officially climbed down from the faux art ladder and began on the bottom rung of a new, more imposing ladder; a career in the fine art world. In a short time she was privileged to find gallery representation as well as have pieces selected as finalists in both the 2015 and 2016 The Artist Magazine’s Annual Art Competition; in 2016 all three of her entries were finalists in the Animal Art Category. All four of her life-sized surrealist paintings from The Bird Watcher series, started in 2013, have been juried into both online and physical shows, including but not limited to: American Women Artist’s 15^th Annual Juried Show at K. Newby Gallery and NOAPS 25^th Annual Best of America Exhibit at The Dunnegan Gallery of Art. In January 2016, she was published, as a finalist, in Southwest Art. Her Grandma Moses dream appeared to be coming true.

But in 2016, a couple of months after painting Impending Doom, Fishing with Audubon’s Great Blue Heron, a crisis took her out of the art world; spiraling her into a world of pain and much needed healing. In 2019, with a manuscript written and in the process of editing, she is wondering if visual art is meant to be a part of her future. So, she is testing the waters once again—content with whatever comes. Either way, nothing will stop her from the pursuit of seeing and experiencing and depicting the beauty, and sometimes tragedy, of God’s nature in some art form or another.

* This statement has been provided directly by the artist in association to their 14^th International ARC Salon entries. This content has not been edited for typos or grammatical errors and has not been vetted for accuracy.