BROOKLYN, New York - An alumnus of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, KellyAnne Hanrahan took her degree in painting, applied her nerdy propensity for computers and formed a career in illustration and graphic design for both print and the internet. In addition to doing design, she exhibits her paintings in New York City and Internationally.

Beginning at the Chicago Sun Times in 1994 as a freelance designer and illustrator, KellyAnne learned the nitty-gritty of the printing world: paste-up, electronic file set-up and the dreaded press checks. Tasks during her stay at the Sun Times included producing (and occasionally illustrating) Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Schubert Theatre playbills and designing content for the official Chicago Tourist Guide. While working for the Sun Times, she began to build on her client list and portfolio with the Chicago Convention and Tourism Bureau - illustrating posters, tourist products, hotel guide covers and Chicago-theme calendars.

In 1995, the internet seemed the perfect career direction for a designer and illustrator. KellyAnne moved on to a full time position at Streams Online Media Development where she collected much knowledge about the emerging world wide web. Back then, graphics were the newest thing on web pages, everyone wrote their own HTML, and any URL you could think of was available. KellyAnne got the incredibly timed opportunity to create websites, animations and custom graphics for clients like Ameritech, Citibank, and Subway Sandwiches. She also got a chance to illustrate and design special projects like the official 1996 Democratic National Convention website. All during the dawn of the internet - which is also when koolass.com launched.

In 1997, she initiated her own design and illustration studio in Wicker Park, Chicago. Projects in those days included promotional print materials for Motorola, branding for Second City's Spark Creative, custom illustrations for Corus Bank and website designs for Bayer Advanced, Georgia Pacific and Microsoft.

By 1998, New York City was calling - and KellyAnne was itching to get off the streets where she was born and raised. With the help of a large project designing an employee training CD ROM for Anderson Consulting, she made the money to skip town from big lake to big ocean.

New York City, 1999 - Rudolph Giuliani was Mayor, Bill Clinton was president and the year 2000 was looming. KellyAnne hit the 20th century Brooklyn ground running with brand new clients like Coach, Children's Television Workshop, Kim Depole Design, and Brooks Brothers.

Just as the 21st Century settled upon us, New York City was changed forever. KellyAnne was still working with a wide variety of clients (such as BP/Arco, Sterling Publishing, adMISSION POSSIBLE!, and Purple Dot magazine) but her business was changing with New York. Perhaps echoing her earlier days of designing for Chicago theatre, her career took a turn towards Broadway and the entertainment world.

It started humble: designing cheap B-movie DVD covers for a company not ironically called VidTapes. But before she knew it, the New York Musical Theatre Festival was knocking on her door. Soon her illustrations were hanging down 42nd Street and flashing on the Panasonic screen in Times Square.

The Festival led to Jujamcyn Theaters - owner of five of the Broadway district playhouses - and began her love affair with designing for Broadway. Giving Jujamcyn a new look was followed by launching the Givenik and Broadway Phone brands. Soon she branched out to Broadway PR firms like Type A Marketing, theatrical booking company AWA, Marketing firm Bond Theatrical, and show-specific production for A Catered Affair and RENT.

Off-Broadway, her focus continues to be the entertainment world, with clients like Backstage newspaper, talent agency Jackson Group Entertainment, musical Prozak and the Platypus and Red Sand Media. She also works with entertaining individuals such as director Kel Haney, illustrator Bill Charmatz, Japanese paper artist Kyoko Ibe, director Elise Thoron, singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, contralto Karen Clark, The Galax Quartet, conductor Kynan Johns, composer Daniel Temkin, and pianist Qing Jiang.

Painting has always been alive throughout her career, and in April of 2011, there were enough paintings of garbage in her series to be presented at RePop in Brooklyn March 1 - April 5, 2013.

As of August 2013, the collection of Garbage Paintings has evolved into a new series: Oil Paintings of Animals. The first exhibition of an animal painting was in May 2014 as part of a group exhibition at The Greenpoint Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. Since then, many of the series have been shown from the Kyoto Municipal Museum in Japan to Walter Wickiser Gallery in Manhattan.

In April 2019, a series of 50 paintings, “50 States of Being Outside,” was exhibited at The Hewitt Gallery of Fine Art in NYC. Since then, two have been chosen to be a part of the Kyoto International Art Exhibition in Kyoto, Japan. You can keep up with all the latest painting news at Oil Paintings of Animals.