Alumni Spotlight: Caroline Kneese

Caroline Kneese (B.F.A. ’02) is this week’s featured alum in our new Alumni Spotlight series for the This Week at Meadows e-newsletter. Each week, a different Meadows alum will be highlighted for their accomplishments post-graduation.

Division of Art alum Caroline Kneese began her Meadows experience on quite a different track than what she would ultimately graduate in, and it was the decision to take an Intro to Painting class during her second semester of freshman year that would change her course.

That painting class, which Kneese calls “fascinating yet intense,” led her to fall in love with painting and further explore art as a viable career path. Her Art History courses helped her to understand the evolution of the art world and art market, while her Studio Art courses gave her opportunity to work with mediums such as painting, drawing, ceramics, sculpture, printmaking, wood shop, and even welding.

“My experience at Meadows is the foundation to my career as a gallerist,” says Kneese. “Having knowledge about art history combined with hands-on experience with the various art mediums enable me to best communicate and educate people about the artists that I represent.”

After graduating Kneese volunteered at the Dallas Center for Contemporary Art, where she gained a lot of insight into how galleries operated, and worked for the art consulting firm Art Ability, where she worked with commercial interior design firms to place artwork in projects like hotels and hospitals. These two experiences, combined with the art knowledge cumulated from her time at Meadows, led her to take the leap and open Cerulean Gallery in University Park’s Snider Plaza in March 2006 where she could focus on selling investment-grade fine art. 

Kneese’s gallery, which has a reputation for showcasing a lot of color, briefly closed its Snider Plaza location in 2009 following a move to Amarillo but in January of 2020, she had the opportunity to move back into the original Snider Plaza location and reopen Cerulean Gallery. And though Kneese originally fell in love with art through painting, she is not currently actively painting and instead expresses her creativity through curating exhibitions for her gallery.

“Cerulean Gallery is about showcasing the talent of the artists that I represent,” she explains. “In the art world, there are no creative boundaries…the sky’s the limit!”

Since her own time at SMU, Kneese has stayed connected to her Meadows roots. She regularly works with other Meadows alumni, such as Robin Hazard (B.F.A. ’84) whose artwork she has been representing for over 18 years. And she’s even had a handful of Meadows students intern at Cerulean Gallery over the years, who she encourages to explore all artistic avenues and be open to the idea that your career can evolve, just like hers did. 

For more information about Kneese’s gallery, you can visit their website at theceruleangallery.com or on Instagram at @ceruleangallery.

Learn more about the Division of Art here.