Sharon Madanes

Artist and psychiatrist Sharon Madanes straddles two seemingly disparate professions, making artwork using hospital forms and rituals to illuminate matters of life and death. Madanes says she was able to find an interesting and fruitful balance between the two disciplines while earning her MFA from Hunter College. Madanes, who studied as an undergraduate at Yale and later earned her medical degree at Columbia, felt drawn to Hunter’s MFA Program because it provided an important safety net and sounding board for artists as they developed their craft. She remembers it as an energetic community that invited many different speakers to events, and held critiques and social gatherings. 

Remarking on her time at Hunter, Madanes says, “I feel grateful for the time I was able to spend participating in my Hunter classes and critiques. It all felt very luxurious, a wonderful privilege.” After graduating, Madanes attended the renowned Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and her artworks have been exhibited in New York City, Los Angeles, and London, as well as displayed on bus shelters and LinkNYC kiosks as part of the Public Art Fund’s “Art on the Grid” decentralized exhibition. She also founded and co-directs 14x48, a nonprofit organization that posts public art on unused city billboards.