About the Artist

Maura Whelan (née O'Brien) is an artist and educator from St. Paul, Minnesota. She is currently living in Missoula, Montana, teaching art at Loyola Sacred Heart High School. She completed her Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017, and her Master of Arts in Art & Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2022. 

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Maura Whelan's artwork focuses on representing the world around her and her ever-changing place in it. Flowing from a background in deep wilderness travel and environmental studies, her work is filled with natural forms, relationships, and systems. Having grown up spending summers camping in the Boundary Waters and at her family cabin in northern Minnesota, she is interested in how childhood memories of wilderness and family can adapt to adult life in new cities, and how our early life experiences continue impacting our lives.  She combines painting and drawing from observation with more abstract forms and patterns to emphasize subjective experience.