Kelley O'Brien

Education

Biography

Kelley O’Brien is an interdisciplinary artist with a background in architecture and design. Her 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. Political and environmental systems intertwine to form the core of her practice, often taking the form of time-based media and installations to offer a glimpse into personal and collective experiences across spaces of heightened social and environmental importance.

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, ArtsGreensboro, Ohio Arts Council, Wexford Arts Council, and a Fulbright Scholarship to the Philippines. She attended residencies at the Art Station in Bahrain, Green Papaya Art Space in the Philippines, the Irish Museum of Art in Dublin, Laboratory Spokane, Wassaic Project, and the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden.

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 indeterminate environments as a political act to give power to untold histories and providing underrepresented perspectives as alternative ways to critically engage with our ecosystems locally and globally.

Subjects Taught

• New Media and Design
• MFA Graduate Faculty

Scholarly Creative/Research Activity

Solo Exhibitions

Group Exhibitions

Personal Website

www.kelleyanneobrien.com