Official opening Friday 6th June at 8 pm
Marje O’Brien’s work is a cohesive body of drawings in which she attempts to describe emotions familiar to us all. Marje says:“It’s imagery has evolved over many years though it has remained consistent. The form is one of two beginnings with a body between them. The beginnings represent individuals and the body is their relationship. We all need relationships, what occurs between the two beginnings are visual metaphors for what we experience in life. The joy and sorrow, ebb and flow, balance and fragility of emotion is my inspiration.
I returned to drawing as my primary method of art making in response to a huge studio space. There, the sensuality of drawing on newsprint (something which every art student tries to move beyond as quickly as possible) overwhelmed me.
Newsprint is generous and forgiving, but demands respect for its fragility. It has a major input into my work from the first mark I make. It’s potential to continue to develop and interfere with my drawing long after I have reached completion affects me deeply, much as a past relationship leaves its mark or stains on each one of us. The high acid content of the paper causes it to ripen as it ages. It can be controlled, if treated -as a precocious child or a precious unstable watercolour painting, but that would defeat the purpose of my making the drawing.
The fragile unstable nature of newsprint speaks loudly for me about a fickle transitory emotion, one of love or heart aching sadness.”
