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Sarah O'Brien / Very Common Glory
17th May -14th June 2008
Preview: Friday 16th May, 6:00 - 8:00pm

Pallas Contemporary Projects is pleased to present
Very Common Glory, the first solo exhibition by Cork born
artist Sarah O'Brien. For this new body of work the artist
has been allowed an extended period of time on-site in which
to test and try out ideas, allowing work to evolve in
relation to the idiosyncratic specifics of the gallery space.
The predominant subject of these resultant new drawings and
installation is cloud formations, or plumes - clouds built
of terrestrial explosions, like volcanoes, or bombs of war,
or the gaseous explosions of distant places in our universe.

O'Brien looks to the work of Romantic painters, namely
Caspar David Friedrich and W.M Turner: "the non-scientific
nature of their work is relevant to me, when challenging
the depiction of things quite… scientific". Friedrich fell
out with Goethe when, asked to illustrate the latters'
meteorological studies, he refused to reduce his emotionally
driven, forceful cloud formations to scientific correctness.
The antagonism between various conceptions/perceptions of
'beauty' is a core consideration of O'Brien's work. Indeed
the title of the show is a comment on the Romantics' low
regard for the desire to analyse the workings of the world,
through examining its smallest components, making a dull
catalogue of common things . This is greatly opposed by the
often rhapsodic language of science, 'glorious' and 'wonderous'
to mention a few. The 'glory' is the name for the part of a
cloud which is illuminated by the sun opposite.

O'Brien's seeming haphazard yet balanced installation and her
use of materials, contrasts with the aspirational subject matter,
her work transcends these composite materials - both the
architectural space in which they are exhibited, and of that
which she has contrived and placed there (e.g recycled linseed
oil soaked paper, scraps of wood, trace and so on).

Sarah O'Brien studied at Crawford College of Art and Design,
Cork 1999 -2003 and M.F.A Painting NCAD 2005-07.
She was awarded the Thomas Damann Student Travel Bursary by
the RHA, 2006. Previous exhibitions include: Tulca (Galway)
and Broadcast (DIT Portland Row), both 2007. She is a member
of artists group - VillaK - involved in projects with Cork Caucus,
Cork City of Culture 2005. Ongoing projects include a fax project,
'Fax ON, Fax Off' for the Artist-Led Archive, (currently at
Catalyst, Belfast). She currently teaches drawing at University
College Dublin.

 

Pallas Contemporary Projects
111 Grangegorman Road Lower, Dublin 7, Ireland
T: +353 1 635 9766
E: info [at] pallasprojects.org
Opening Hours: Thurs - Sat, 12 - 6 pm