Kat O’Connor is a full-time artist and art instructor living in Worcester, Massachusetts.
O’Connor’s work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States. She is a Copley Master with the Copley Society of Artists and was honored with a Co/So Fellowship and Residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Massachusetts in 2023 and 2025, and was a 2021 Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Resident. She was awarded a Mass Cultural Council Fellowship for her drawings in 2018, and two ArtsWorcester Material Needs Grants. She has lead painting classes in France, Italy, Greece, Texas, New Mexico, and throughout New England.
O’Connor works in watercolor, acrylic, oil, and drawing media.
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EDUCATION
1995 Master of Fine Arts, University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
1990 Bachelor of Arts in Art, with highest honors, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana
1988 St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland
Exchange student, accreditation through Mohegan Community College, Norwich, Connecticut
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
Copley Society of Art, Copley Master. Boston, Massachusetts.
Creative Connections Gift Shop and Gallery, Ashburnham, Massachusetts.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 Twice the Speed of Bliss, The Umbrella Arts Center, Concord, Massachusetts.
2025 Complicated Beauty: New Work by Kat O’Connor, Creative Connections Gift Shop and Gallery, Ashburnham, Massachusetts.
2024 Kat O’Connor: Swimming the Jewel, Highfield Hall and Gardens, Falmouth, Massachusetts.
2023 Kat O’Connor: Ripple in the Black, Creative Connections Gift Shop and Gallery, Ashburnham, Massachusetts.
2022 Fathom: The Art of Kat O’Connor, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2022 Bits: Paintings by Kat O’Connor, kind of a small array, Magdalena, New Mexico.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2025 Lee Mingwei: Our Peaceable Kingdom, Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2025 Colors, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2025 We, The People, Jane Deering Gallery, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
2024 Lines of Thought/Contemporary Women Artists Draw, Jane Deering Gallery, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
2024 88th Regional Exhibition of Art and Craft, Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. Juried by Gabriel Sosa.
2024 Call and Response: Feast, An exhibition in partnership with ArtsWorcester. Fitchburg Art Museum, Fitchburg,
Massachusetts. Juried by Eli Yung, Terry and Eva Herndon Assistant Curator, and Emily Mazzola, Curator, Fitchburg Art Museum.
2024 2024 MJ2, (Baldwin Prize for Drawing), Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord, Massachusetts. Juried by Candice Smith Corby.
2023 Twentieth ArtsWorcester Biennial, Worcester, Massachusetts. Juried by Conor Moynihan, Assistant Curator of
Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island.
2023 14 Artists/Curators, Schiltkamp Gallery, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2023 2023 MJ2, (Baldwin Prize for Drawing), Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord, Massachusetts. Juried by Kelley Lehr, Co-Director Greenhut Galleries and Cove Street Arts, Portland, Maine.
2022 The Newport Annual 2022, Newport Art Museum, Newport Rhode Island. Dr. Kimberli Gant, The McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Chrysler Museum, Juror.
2022 Made in Paint 2022, Golden Artist Colors, New Berlin, New York.
2021 Blue, Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Jessica May, Managing Director of Art and
Exhibitions with The Trustees, and Artistic Director of deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Juror.
2021 Nineteenth ArtsWorcester Biennial, (Sally Bishop Prize for Best in Show) ArtsWorcester, Worcester,
Massachusetts. Beth C. McLaughlin, Fuller Craft Museum, Juror.
2021 New Beginnings, (First Prize), Copley Society of Art, Boston, Massachusetts. Juried by Ali Ringenburg, Owner and
Director of Sloane Merrill Gallery.
SELECTED GRANTS AND HONORS
2021 ArtsWorcester Material Needs Grant, $950 Grant Award, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2018 Mass Cultural Council Artist Fellowship, Drawing & Printmaking, $12,000. Massachusetts.
2017 ArtsWorcester Material Needs Grant, $1,500 Grant Award, Worcester, Massachusetts.
RESIDENCIES
2025 Copley Society Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts.
2023 Copley Society Visual Arts Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, Massachusetts.
2021 Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Residency, New Berlin, New York.
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2025 Instructor, Paint Your Bliss: Painting in the French Pyrenees with Kat O’Connor, Clos Mirabel, France.
2012-Present Instructor, Umbrella Center for Arts, Concord, Massachusetts. Technical Watercolor, Figure Drawing,
Technical Oil Painting.
2022 Curator, Realism Reboot. Krikorian Gallery, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, Massachusetts.
2020 Curator, Realism. Krikorian Gallery, Worcester Center for Crafts, Worcester, Massachusetts.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Duckett, Richard. “Worcester Artist Kat O’Connor has Solo Exhibition.” Worcester Magazine. July 15-21, 2022, page 4.
“Kat O’Connor, A Study in Contrasts: Water/Desert/Galaxy” Featured Artist, Juniper Rag, Volume 2, 2021, pages 52-55.
Goslow, Brian. “Our Ever-Changing Moods: Spring’s Timely Arrival at Copley Society.” Artscope Magazine. March/April, 2020.
Rubell, Roxanne. “Copley Society Celebrates 140th Anniversary.” American Art Review. December, 2019, pages 42-47.
Goslow, Brian. "Newbury Street Re/Vision: A Sense of Place at Copley Society." Artscope Magazine. July/August, 2019, pages 9-13.
Goslow, Brian. "Making a Splash: Kat O'Connor in New Haven." Artscope Magazine, May/June, 2017, pages 80-81.