Patricia Bellan-Gillen was born in Beaver Falls, PA and lives and works in rural Washington County, Pennsylvania adjacent to the West Virginia border.  She is retired from Carnegie Mellon University after 29 years as a professor in the School of Art where she held the Dorothy L. Stubnitz Endowed Chair.  The university honored her with the Ryan Award for Meritorious Teaching in 2000.  

Bellan-Gillen’s paintings, prints and drawings have been the focus of over 50 solo exhibitions in venues in Washington DC, Nashville, TN, Houston, TX, Atlanta, GA, Las Cruces, NM, Albany, NY, Bloomington, IL Portland, OR, Grand Rapids, MI, Wellington, NZ and Wimbledon/London, UK.  Most recently, her solo exhibition, “Words and Other Weapons” was held at the McDonough Museum of Art, Youngstown, OH.    

Her work has been included in numerous group shows in museums, commercial galleries, university galleries, and alternative spaces.  Venues have included: Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, Chelsea Museum of Art, New York, NY, The Art Museum at FIU, Miami, FL, Frans Masreel Centrum, Belgium, University Art Museum, Laramie, WY, Tacoma Museum of Art, Tacoma, WA and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan.    

Solo exhibitions of Bellan-Gillen’s work are scheduled for fall 2024 at the Piedmont Art Center, Martinsville, VA and Zynka Gallery, Pittsburgh, fall 2025.  Her large-scale drawings will be featured in a group show at the West Virginia University Museum of Art in the spring of 2025.  

Bellan-Gillen is an alumnus of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania where she received a B.S. in Art Education in 1973 and a B.F.A. in Printmaking in 1975. EUP named her a Distinguished Art Alumnus in 1993. She did post-graduate work at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and received an M.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon in 1979.  

Patricia has been active in the Pittsburgh art scene since 1977 as an exhibitor, educator and mentor. In 1995, she was the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts “Pittsburgh Artist of the Year.”  

She is represented by Tinney Contemporary, Nashville, TN, Zynka Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA and Nicole Longnecker Gallery, Houston, TX.