Erin McCluskey Wheeler is a painter, collagist, writer, curator, and teacher based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Erin works in many series at once and across disciplines in painting, collage, works on paper, prints, essays, and poetry. There is always a careful attention to placement, selection, and adjacency in both her writing and her visual art. Each medium with its different qualities, allows Erin to explore ideas about memory, language, color, and place, while retaining a unified voice that reflects on the power of color and connection. Erin has a BA in studio art and art history from Beloit College, and an MFA from California College of the Arts in writing. Erin is a faculty member of the 92NY School of the Arts in New York City. With other nonprofits and art centers, Erin teaches collage and mixed media classes and workshops throughout the Bay Area. Erin’s collage based artwork is licensed and sold through West Elm, Minted, Target, and Samsung. She has won multiple awards for her visual art and poetry including the top prize for poetry from Northwind Arts and in 2022 was the featured cover and poster artist for Kolaj Magazine’s World Collage Day. In 2024, she published a book of her writing and photography, Dandelions, with National Monument Press. Erin has been an Artist in Residence with the City of El Cerrito, the City of Walnut Creek, and was awarded a Gallery-as-Studio Residency and solo exhibition at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. She was part of the inaugural group of Artists in Residence at Nick's Cove in Tomales Bay and her work was included in the 2024 Right Here Right Now Richmond Biennial exhibition. Erin is a co-founder and serves on the leadership team for the Visual Artists of Richmond, an artist led arts advocacy group.