Born in
Paterson, New Jersey, Curran received a
B.S. in art from Skidmore College in 1972 and her
M.F.A. from Yale University in 1974. In 1974, she began teaching studio art at
LaGrange College in
Troup County, Georgia, where she worked until 1977. According to the
art critic Adriana Rabinovitch, Curran "
anthropomorphizes what we call garbage in a manner that spurs a deeper investigation into the cycle of life of an object". Writing in a 1989 review for
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Edward J. Sozanski said that Curran's paintings "amplify the 19th-century idea of the painting as a window into the landscape by nesting several layers of perception one inside the other".Throughout her career, Curran received
grants from the Independence Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council for the Arts, and was twice a finalist in the
Pew Fellowship for the Arts. In 2017, Curran completed a residency at the
Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Umbria, Italy, where she created a series of gouache paintings and drawings inspired by the natural environment and the physical surroundings of the foundation's 15th-century castle, some of which were later exhibited in Curran's solo show titled
Instability at
InLiquid Gallery in Philadelphia in 2019. She was also the recipient of the 2018 Awagami Print Award by
The Print Center in Philadelphia.
Exhibitions and collections Curran held solo exhibitions at the Lamar Dodd Art Center in
LaGrange, West Georgia College (now
University of West Georgia) in
Carrollton,
Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, and Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia, among other venues in the United States. She was included in over 100 group shows, including exhibitions at the
Courtauld Institute of Art in London,
Michener Art Museum, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among other institutions.
Death Curran died on 29 March 2023 of complications from
metastatic cancer at the age of 72. == References ==