Tara Sweeney, an award-winning artist, illustrator and author based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, has been creating for more than forty years. Her prolific body of work includes watercolor painting, plein air sketching, book illustration and creative non-fiction. She teaches studio watercolor painting and plein air travel workshops regionally and internationally. Tara has been awarded signature status in the National Watercolor Society, Transparent Watercolor Society of America, Red River Watercolor Society, Minnesota Watercolor Society and Northstar Watermedia Society.
Her award-winning work has been honored in local and national exhibits 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Her watercolor was chosen to represent Minnesota in the National Watercolor Society’s 50 Stars 2020 Exhibition. She co-authored and illustrated the 2020 MN Book Award Finalist picture book, A to Zåäö: Playing with History at the American Swedish Institute (University of MN Press, 2019). The American Swedish Institute's 2020 exhibition, extra/ordinary, was inspired by the book and featured the original illustrations. TPT2 public television’s MN Original recently showcased her work. In 2017, she was awarded a MN State Arts Board grant for a six-month residency to create A to Zåäö, and in 2009 for her mixed media series, Forbidden Fruit. Close to Home: A Minnesota Year in Sketches is her debut collection of illustrated creative nonfiction. Other illustrations include: Henry the Boy (Penny Candy Press, 2019) as well as book covers for Harper and Row Perennial Library, Milkweed Editions, University of Minnesota Press and Minnesota Historical Society Press. In 2019, she represented the Twin Cities in Tours, France in a sister city sketching exchange.
Recent Awards: Gold Medal, 2025 Red River Watercolor Society National; Best of Show, 2025 NorthStar; Transparent Watercolor Society of America 2024 (Pat Fortunato Memorial Award); MN Watercolor Society 2022 (Best in Show) 2020 (Best in Show), 2023 and 2019 (Founder’s Awards); Northstar Water Media National 2021 (Best of Show), National Watercolor Society 2017 (merchandise award).
Selected Solo exhibitions: Extra/Ordinary (2019-2020), American Swedish Institute, Minneapolis, MN; Close to Home: Sketching a MN Year, Part II, (2014), Gage Family Gallery, Minneapolis, MN; Close to Home: Sketching a MN Year, Part I (2013), Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI.
Selected group exhibitions: Transparent Watercolor Society of America International (2018 and 2019); National Watercolor Society International (2017 and 2019); National Watercolor Society Member Exhibition (2011-2013); Red River Watercolor Society International (2018, 2019, 2021); Watercolor West International (2010); Waterborne: Selections from the Weisman Museum (2008-2009); NorthStar Watermedia International (2017, 2019, 2021); MN Watercolor Society Exhibitions (2005 to present).
Credentials: Tara has taught over one hundred plein air and studio watercolor workshops in the last decade. She is an experienced juror and art professor emerita with Augsburg University art and design department. She served as chair of the department and sat on the committee of exhibition selection for Augsburg's Galleries. Prior to teaching she worked in publishing: first as executive art director for Mpls.-St. Paul Magazine; then 15 years as owner/principal designer for Fruitful Results. She earned undergraduate degrees in studio art and in textile design from the University of Wisconsin (1978), and an MFA from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (1997). Her lifelong love of watercolor began with coursework at the West Surrey College of Art and Design, UK, 1978.