The School of Art & Design at Alfred University proudly announces that two paintings by Professor Stephanie McMahon, Local Horizon (2021) and Heat Wave (2022), have been acquired by the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection, one of the nation’s largest and most distinguished contemporary art collections integrated within a healthcare setting.
Curated by an in-house team of experts, the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection features more than 7,000 works of contemporary art installed in hospitals and care facilities across the Cleveland Clinic enterprise. The collection is designed to offer a museum-quality experience in spaces of care, with artworks selected to promote healing, activate environments, and provide moments of curiosity, rest, and contemplation for patients, visitors, and caregivers. With more than 7,000 works on view, the collection offers moments of reflection, calm, and connection, demonstrating the essential role art plays in holistic care.
McMahon is professor of painting and drawing in the School of Art & Design at Alfred University and an alumna of the program, having earned her BFA from Alfred University in 1998. She also earned an MFA in painting from the University of Texas at Austin in 2004. Her dual role as educator and practicing artist reflects Alfred’s commitment to faculty who actively contribute to contemporary discourse while mentoring the next generation of artists.
Her paintings are characterized by richly layered abstraction, dynamic compositional structures, and an intuitive yet disciplined engagement with color and space. Local Horizon and Heat Wave evoke atmospheric shifts and perceptual experience, offering visual rhythms that invite sustained looking — qualities that align closely with the collection’s mission to humanize clinical environments through contemporary art.
“Stephanie’s work exemplifies the values we hold at Alfred: deep material inquiry, intellectual rigor, and the ability to translate research and making into meaningful public impact,” said Lauren Lake, dean of the School of Art & Design. “This acquisition reflects our strategic pillars of mentorship, making knowledge work, and intersections and pathways. As both an alumna and a professor, Stephanie embodies the full arc of an Alfred education: sustained mentorship, excellence in practice, and the extension of artistic research into spaces that profoundly affect people’s lives.”
McMahon’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is included in public and private collections. Honors include a New York Foundation for the Arts Strategic Opportunity Stipend, a grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and the Memorial Art Gallery Award of Excellence. Her paintings have been featured in publications such as Hyperallergic, New American Paintings, The Boston Globe, and Art Maze Magazine.
The acquisition of Local Horizon and Heat Wave by the Cleveland Clinic Art Collection marks a significant professional milestone and underscores the relevance of McMahon’s work within contemporary conversations about art’s role beyond traditional museum and gallery contexts.
