Katie Pace Halleran (she/her) has a BA in Studio Art with a minor in Art History from Pitzer College and a certificate in Non-Profit at Harvard Management from UTSA. Halleran spent roughly 10 years in the health and human service sector, serving individuals and communities striving for brighter futures for themselves and their families. She was also a selected participant in a yearlong intensive training focused on race, class, and culture with the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Halleran currently teaches community watercolor classes at UTSA Southwest. She and her true partner and husband are gratefully raising one amazing child.
Based in San Antonio, Texas, Halleran uses watercolor and repetitive ink patterns to create visual mantras informed by both order and disarray. Drawing inspiration from a Jungian perspective of dreams and archetypal symbolism, Halleran’s paintings often feature the circle or dot as spiritual tools for reflection, meditation, and beauty. Initially a direct image from a single dream, the circle is an expression of the sacred for the artist. Circles have been used as a symbol and vessel for divine contemplation across cultures and time. Time itself is often referred to as a circle, as is life. From mandalas to rose windows, medicine wheels to the Pantheon, from the pentacle to Stonehenge to the tomoe, from the bindi to the yarmulke to the enso, from the star and crescent to the ouroboros to the flower of life and the wedding ring; the circle is a powerful, multicultural symbol inherently contradictory, as it represents both singularity and the infinite. As an instrument of meditation and reflection, Halleran explores various forms of the circle and dot to connect with the divine and create a sense of beautiful harmony out of chaos.
