Joann Wheeler has made art since her childhood in Pittsburgh, PA.  She received early training at home and in classes at the Carnegie Museum and at Carnegie-Mellon University School of Fine Arts.  She has lived and worked in the Black Forest in Germany and in the Boston area.  Her three-dimensional collages and boxes have been exhibited and sold in juried group shows at the Oil Heritage Art Exhibit (Oil City), Brickbottom Gallery (Somerville, MA), Cambridge Art Association (Cambridge, MA), Handworks Gallery (Blue Hill, ME), and De Havilland Fine Art (Boston).  Solo shows include the Venango Campus of Clarion University,  the Transit Gallery (Oil City, PA), and the Cambridge Public Library.  Her work is in private collections in the USA and the UK.  She now lives in Oil City, PA, where she coordinates an arts revitalization program for area artists and artists relocating to the town.

"I see my work as both personal, in the way a dream or a memory is personal, and as archetypal -- an attempt to match external forms with internal themes.  I like to use found objects as bases for my pieces, from Styrofoam packing pieces to parts of demolished houses or furniture.  It's not always clear to me what I'm going to end up with -- my two dimensional work keeps trying to become three-dimensional; my three-dimensional work often incorporates symbols of time, the fourth dimension. I love to fill contained spaces with meaning, and I also love to stretch the boundaries, push the limits!   Thank you for visiting my site -- please let me hear from you!  Just send me comments on our update page or e-mail me."

                                                             Joann Wheeler