Before she became an artist, Gallagher worked as a commercial fisherman on ships off the coasts of Alaska and Maine. She also briefly worked as a carpenter before attending the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She once said, “Working with my hands is what brought me to art. I gained information through the craft of carpentry.” At art school, she used her knowledge of woodworking to create huge
canvases that she could sit on while she worked!
Some of Gallagher’s early works were exhibited in the 1995 Whitney Biennial exhibition. These paintings were made by gluing sheets of lined composition paper directly onto canvas. Gallagher drew on the paper in pencil using a personal language she created of images that referenced stereotypes of African Americans. For example, she included the rolling eyeballs and big lips found in images of those who performed black face in minstrel shows. Gallagher has also made large-scale installations that filled entire rooms!
Recently Gallagher has collaborated to make art with Edgar Cleijne, an artist from the Netherlands. She lives and works in New York City and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
