Born in Galway, Ireland, Kerrane received her BA in Fine Arts Degree from the University of Ulster at Belfast before migrating to the United States where she earned her MFA from the University of New Orleans, Louisiana. Currently residing in Denver, Colorado, Kerrane is Professor in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Colorado Denver where she was awarded researcher of the year in 2017. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally in Latvia, Italy, Austria, Mexico and Ireland.
The Keynote for IRON R 2, Cork, Ireland in 2014 and a featured artist in the IRON R 18, Kerrane maintains her relationship with her home. She recently completed a residency at the National Sculpture Factory, Cork, Ireland, and a solo exhibit, "Line of Inquiry", at The Glebe Gallery in Donegal.
A founder and board member for the Western Cast Iron Art Alliance, she contributes to planning conferences and exhibitions. A contributor in steering the 7th International Conference in Contemporary Cast Iron Art (ICCCIA) in Latvia, she was co-director for performances for the 8th ICCCIA in Scranton, Pennsylvania in 2018.
Her work, "The Oscar Wallpaper" was commissioned in 2019 for Between Us, the alleyway project sponsored by Downtown Denver Business Improvement District. "WE THE PEOPLE", a community project with the History Colorado Center, coincided with their American Democracy exhibition in fall 2020.
Areas of Expertise
Art Practices- Sculpture
Education, Licensure & Certifications
University of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
MFA; Sculpture
University of Ulster Belfast, Northern Ireland
BA; Fine Art
Awards
2017 Researcher of the Year, CU Denver
Office of Research and Scholarship Grant 2018
Courses
Installation Art, Concepts in Sculpture, Advance Art Practices, Wood & Metal Sculpture, Bronze Casting, Three Dimensional Design, Sculptural Drawing
Publications and Presentations
IRON R18
National Sculpture Factory & Crawford College of Art & Design, Ireland 2018
The IRON-R Project was established in 2011, with the objective of exploring the underused and often underappreciated medium of cast iron and investigate the array of casting techniques and processes used to generate artwork from this material. Many of these iron casting processes are becoming obsolete in Ireland and are rarely availed of or employed by the art community. The IRON-R Project is an opportunity for both emerging and established artists to re-engage with this lost medium and its technologies. IRON-R 18 is another opportunity to share knowledge and to demonstrate and highlight the medium’s application and value in contemporary art practice.
8th International Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art
Scranton, Pa., USA, 2018
Cast Iron Performance Artists often use the molten iron as a sculptural vehicle for the imagination, drawing on its innate material properties and rich historical references. From the speculative and visionary to the practical and applied, artists working with cast iron use a wide variety of processes in their work. One of particular appeal and complexity is using the art and act of melting and casting as the art itself as performance.
The Branding Iron Graffiti Project (or the housewife at the ironing board)
Iron 50, University of Minnesota Minneapolis, 2019
The University of Minnesota Minneapolis, (UM), is celebrating fifty years of casting iron. This is the longest standing iron casting program in the country. In the Iron 50 work, Rian incorporates the use of branding irons to generate communication as a means to critique the modes of expression we apply in current society. Rian is also intrigued by the content we deem important enough to communicate and make a permeant record. Identity, ownership, logos, graffiti, the custom of marking livestock, humans, the emoji texted in the stead of a word (or complete sentence); all are bound together in this work. Rian explores the power of the graphic symbol and the meaning of visual language when it becomes a cross cultural, universal language.
