Kathleen Patricia Thrane is a painter, documentary-photographer, avocational archaeologist, and activist. Born in New York City in 1962 to Scottish and Norwegian parents, she grew up between Connecticut and Norway. She studied at the New School for Social Research/Parsons School of Design and Norwalk Community College.

Thrane has lived in Europe, the Far East, and Africa and is fluent in several languages. She worked in the Philippines during the Marcos/Aquino revolution. Her activism against apartheid included working with Dali Tambo, the son of African National Congress president Oliver Tambo and the founder of Artists Against Apartheid, in London during the 1980's.

In 1985-6, Thrane worked and lived in the townships of apartheid South Africa, using her skills as a photographer to document poverty and discrimination. Her work was difficult and dangerous. She entered South Africa in the guise of a fashion photographer and had to work in secret. Thrane was jailed while trying to photograph migrant labor camps. Although she was able to hand over her camera to a colleague before she was arrested, she was still carrying seven rolls of film. Fortunately, they were not discovered, and those films became the only ones she was eventually able to bring out of the country. She also met with resistance to publicizing her work outside South Africa, owing to the sanctions that were then in place.

In addition to her photography and painting, Thrane worked with Jonas Gwangwa as he developed the sound track for the movie Cry Freedom; and she worked on concerts sponsored by Artists Against Apartheid, including the “Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute” in 1988, part of the campaign for Mandela’s release from prison.

She is currently researching and writing a book on domestic violence, and is active in local environmental issues and archaeological and historic preservation.