Kelley O’Brien is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in architecture and design. Kelley’s work negotiates boundaries between industrial and “natural” landscapes, through a feminist perspective, to explore cultural links between gender hierarchy and the domination of the natural world. She has exhibited at the CICA Museum (Korea), National College of Art and Design (Ireland), Stroboskop Art Space (Warsaw) as well as Transformer Station, McDonough Museum of Art and The Everson Museum of Art in the United States. Kelley has been awarded grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Ohio Arts Council, Wexford Arts Council, ArtsGreensboro and a Fulbright Scholarship to the Philippines. Her artistic practice extends into her academic and curatorial research through collaborative projects with Francis Halsall under the title “Mapping Systems.” Collectively they have held workshops, lecture courses, and curated residencies in Ireland, the United States and the Philippines. Through her art, curatorial, and collaborative research practices, O’Brien seeks to highlight precarious and trivial environments as a political act, allowing untold histories and underrepresented perspectives to shape engagements with our ecosystems.
O’Brien’s work is currently on view at SHAG through April 1, 2022 in her solo exhibition, The Liberation of Terra Superna.