STAFF MEMBERS
BETHANY ENGSTROM (she/her) // Managing Director
Bethany is an artist, curator, and educator in Belfast, Maine. She has a BA in Art History, a MFA in Intermedia, and an Interdisciplinary PhD in Intermedial Collaborative Practices from the University of Maine. Her recent work utilizes objects, installation, audio, and video, focusing on how these materials can express ideas of time, environment, labor/work, and motherhood. She has participated in residencies at the Volland Foundation, Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, Ellis-Beauregard Foundation and Mildred’s Lane. Recent exhibitions include the Newport Art Museum, Collar Works (Troy, New York), Cove Street Arts, and Waterfall Arts.
Bethany is also a part-time Assistant Professor in the Intermedia MFA program at UMaine and an adjunct Lecturer, Visual Arts at the University of Maine Augusta and Bowdoin College. She was formally the Associate Curator at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Along with Patricia Brace and in consultation with Deborah Wing-Sproul she has recently formed the Performance Art Initiative (PAI) that supports exposure, development, exhibition opportunities, and audience engagement for Maine-based artists working in performance.
CATHERINE GRAFFAM (she/her) // Gallery Manager
Catherine is an artist and educator based in Portland. She received her BFA in painting at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and has since gone onto exhibit her work around the US and Canada. Her work uses traditional portraiture as a means to discuss queer identity and neurodivergence. Previously, she was an adjunct instructor at Lasell University as well as the Exhibitions Director at Gallery 263 in Cambridge, MA.
Recognitions include being listed as one of NH Magazine’s “Remarkable Women of 2017” and being honored as a “Champion of Pride” in 2021 by The Advocate for her activism surrounding trans and intersex youth. She was profiled in A BIG IMPORTANT ART BOOK: NOW WITH WOMEN by The Jealous Curator, and has been featured in publications like Teen Vogue, The Verge, VICE, TIME, Saatchi Art Magazine, and created cover art for POLITCO.
BOARD MEMBERS
JOCELYN LEE (she/her) - Co-President and Founder
Jocelyn is a photographer and has been making psychological portraits for over 35 years. She has received Fellowships Awards from the Maine Arts Commission (2020), the New York Foundation for the Arts (2014), and the Guggenheim Foundation (2001). Her third monograph Sovereign was published by Minor Matters Books in December 2020 with an essay by Dr. April Watson of the Nelson Atkins Museum, and features portraits of women between the ages of 55 and 92 naked. Her first monograph Nowhere but here, was published by Steidl Publishers in December 2010 with a forward by Sharon Olds; and in 1996 her photographs of teen parents were included in the book The Youngest Parents, published by DoubleTake Books and The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, to accompany the work of Dr. Robert Coles. She has taught for over 20 years, primarily at Princeton University and the Maine College of Art. Her work is represented in many public and private collections and has appeared in national and international publications including The New York Times Magazine and The New Yorker. She is represented by Huxley Parlour in London, England, and Flatland Gallery in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
In 2015 she founded SPEEDWELL CONTEMPORARY as a way to redress the art world’s institutional lack of attention to the work of women, BiPOC and LGBTQ+ artists who have made a lifetime commitment to their work.
BRIAN URQUHART - Co-President and Co-Founder
Brian co-founded SPEEDWELL Contemporary with his wife Jocelyn Lee in 2015, where he has often served as Treasurer, providing administrative and gallery support. A graduate of Stanford, Brian received his graduate degree in German Studies at Cornell University. He subsequently served as a manager at the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, before pursuing a career in the video game industry, where he worked in California as a technical producer for companies such as Blizzard and Disney. Upon moving to Brooklyn in 2007, Brian worked as a technical project manager in online marketing and advertising. Since moving to Maine in 2014 Brian has worked in real estate development and volunteered at SPEEDWELL.
EILEEN MONAHAN (she/her) // Treasurer
Eileen began her career in the financial services industry with a strong belief that providing appropriate financial advice to her clients would be the foundation of her practice, and 35 years later the trusted client relationships she has established are a testimony to her earliest intentions. She established her own firm, Monahan Associates, in 1986, and has continuously brokered through Commonwealth Financial Services.
Born in Dublin, Ireland, Eileen’s family emigrated to the Bronx in New York where she grew up playing basketball and where she established her still effective killer jump shot. She continues to play basketball and highly values the lessons she has learned playing team sports. Eileen maintains dual citizenship in both Ireland and the United States and loves to spend time with her extended family in Dublin and New York.
KATY KELLEHER (she/her) // Secretary
Katy is an art, design, nature, and science writer living in the woods of Maine. Her work has appeared in the pages of the New York Times, the Guardian, American Scholar, and Town & Country. She’s written online for Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Jezebel, and other sites. She’s a frequent contributor to the Paris Review and spent several years writing a popular column there on color, Hue’s Hue. Her essays have been anthologized in both The Best American Food Writing and The Best American Science and Nature Writing.
LOUISE KENNELLY (she/her)
Louise is an artist, arts advocate and nonprofit leader. She is currently the executive director at the Frederick Arts Council where she has launched innovative programs such as the award-winning Sky Stage, an outdoor amphitheater and public art initiative. She works with the board, team, members and volunteers to provide scholarships, grants, exhibitions, festivals and professional development.Before joining the arts council, she was the executive director of the DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative and a Director of the National High School Center. She has won a Maryland Individual Artist Award, a North Carolina Individual Artist Award, is a resident art educator at the Maryland State Arts Council, and represented the state of North Carolina at the LaNapoule Art Foundation Artist Residency. She is an award-winning poet who has been published in numerous journals such as the Alaska Quarterly Review, The Louisville Review, The Abiko Quarterly and Southwest Review. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECA) and the Fayetteville Museum as well as at numerous galleries. She is dedicated to advancing artists, innovators, originals and creatives of all ages and locations.
CHRISTINNE WILLIAMS
KATE KATOMSKI (she/her)
Kate is a multi-media artist and educator whose inter-disciplinary experience includes art and architecture history, environmental and landscape design, costume and set design. She lives and works in Portland, ME and New York, NY. Her body of work includes sculpture, printmaking, performance, video and installation.
Kirsty Clothing is a designer and ceramic artist. She founded Sailor Rose many years ago, with the first dress she ever found and altered. Growing up in New York City, she foraged endless thrift stores, where clothes were piled ceiling high. These treasure hunts lasted hours, each fabric and garment unique, having lived some other life, it's own special journey which ultimately brought it to her hand.
Shoshannah is an interdisciplinary artist based in Portland, Maine. She received her BFA from The Savannah College of Art and Design and has studied at the Center for Creative Imaging as well as the Maine Photographic Workshop. She has participated in artist residencies in the United States, the Canadian Maritimes and in Svalbard, Norway, within the Arctic Circle. She has been awarded grants and funding through organizations including the Taconic Foundation, Arts New Brunswick, Canada and the Maine Arts Commission, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts and has received support from the Kindling Fund, a SPACE Gallery re-granting program funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation.
We extend our sincere gratitude to our past
STAFF MEMBERS
Erin Hutton, Ember Rilleau, Annika Earley, and Phoebe Cole
BOARD MEMBERS
Donna McNeil, Dharni Vasudevan, Debra Spark, Gillian Schair, Alex Sax, Anne Henshaw, Katarina Weslien, Gabe Demaine, Juliet Karelsen