Katherine Sherwood
About the artist:
Katherine Sherwood’s work explores intersectionality, feminism, and art history through the lens of disability. Her life and artistic journey underwent a profound transformation when she experienced a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of forty-four, resulting in paralysis on the right side of her body. Teaching herself to paint again with her left hand was part of her recovery and healing, ultimately invigorating her practice and opening new paths for creativity.
Sherwood earned her BA in Art History from the University of California, Davis, and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She is Professor Emerita of Painting at UC Berkeley where she taught for over thirty years until her retirement in 2011. Sherwood has exhibited internationally and has received numerous awards, including an NEA Artist Fellowship, a Pollock-Krasner Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship Award, and a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. She remains an activist for disability rights and social justice, founding and teaching the course Art, Medicine, and Disability at UC Berkeley for over a decade. Her work is part of many major public collections, including the Ford Foundation in New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC; and the University of Missouri, Columbia, among others.
Artwork in exhibition:
Katherine Sherwood, Three Moths (R.R.) , 2019, Mixed media on found canvas, 45 x 35 in., Courtesy of the artist and Anglim Trimble Gallery