[2][10]Kilgallen's first major group exhibitions appeared in 1997 and included the first Bay Area Now show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

In 1998, Kilgallen had another solo exhibition, Sincere Sin, at the John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco, CA.

[14][3] Her work was also an important part of the 2004–2006 touring exhibit, Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture.

Her many works in gouache, acrylic, and randomly-mixed and recycled house paints on found paper (often discarded book endpapers),[17] reflect an interest in typographic styles and symbology that can be traced to her work as a book conservator with Dan Flanagan at the San Francisco Public Library in the early to mid-1990s.

[18] Kilgallen rendered all her work by hand without preparatory drawings or masking tape in order to express the handmade quality of each piece.

[19] In addition to her commissioned mural work, Kilgallen was also a graffiti artist under the tag names "Meta" and "Matokie Slaughter.

[10] In addition to Kilgallen’s work, she also displayed themes of nostalgia as an important part of her artistic expression that revolved around sentimental values, and a person's sense of close solidarity within a community.

This was based on Kilgallen’s real life values which established the idea of togetherness providing an element of belonging rather than isolation.