Tricia McLaughlin

Tricia McLaughlin (born January 29, 1964 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) is a New York City-based American visual artist whose works in animation, sculpture and painting often deal with the themes of fantastic or impossible architecture and their impact on potential inhabitants. Her work has been exhibited throughout the US, as well as in the UK, Valencia, Spain, Berlin, Germany, Cyprus, South Korea, and Kyoto, Japan, and she is a recipient of the Guggenheim and a New York Foundation for the Arts grants. McLaughlin studied painting and computer graphics at Syracuse University, and after earning her BFA there, volunteered for the Peace Corps. From 1987 to 1989, she was assigned to the community of Uvita de Osa in Costa Rica, and worked for the Peace Corps’ Women in Development program there, supervising programs in the development of cottage industries and increasing literacy, as well as starting the area’s first women’s futbol league. In 1992, she attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, Maine on their fellowship. She earned her MFA in Hunter College's Combined Media program in 2000. Moving to New York City after the Peace Corps, McLaughlin taught herself computer graphics software while working as a scenic artist for theater and fashion, painting sets for Bill T. Jones, the New York City-based dancer and Anne Klein II campaigns. After spending several years working in the private sector, designing also for magazines, books, CD-ROMs and the Internet, McLaughlin enrolled at Hunter College and earned her there in 2000 and attended a residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts. Two years out of Hunter's graduate program, she had her first solo show at Florence Lynch Gallery in Manhattan. Also in 2002, she participated in group shows at Apexart and White Box Gallery. The next year she had a second solo show at Sixtyseven Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In 2004, her work was included in the group show "Screwball", at Vox Populi alternative art space in Philadelphia.