Mary O’Connor’s artistic journey reflects a personal exploration of movement and migration, both in the physical and metaphorical sense. This exhibition, TEN, captures the essence of her ten years back in Ireland, while celebrating the impact and influence that travelling across continents throughout her life has had on her work. This has resulted in artworks that are both visually striking and thematically profound.

O’Connor’s work is characterised by flat, gestural compositions that make use of bold, abstract geometric designs. She makes paintings, screen prints, and large-scale wall murals that are influenced by the various vast landscapes she has encountered. The boldness of her colour palette and the recurring shapes in her work convey a sense of movement – both the physical movement of her own life and the larger, more gradual movements of the earth itself. Beyond personal narrative, her art delves into the broader themes of environmental impact, suggesting the immediate impact we as humans have on our environment, contrasted with the slow, almost imperceptible movements of tectonic plates.

A pivotal moment in O’Connor’s career came in 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The isolation and time allowed her to experiment with small gesso panels, which she began to produce routinely. The stacked layers of multiple panels mimic geological strata, further emphasising the connection to the earth. By mimicking the layers of soil and rock found in landscapes, O’Connor’s panels become a metaphor for the passage of time and the accumulation of experience. Within each layer there are numerous colours. As in nature, the formation and arrangement of each colour is accidental and not controlled, but a byproduct of painting on the panels. By photographing these panels on their sides, she transformed them into sculptural stacks and ensured a further evolution of her work.

Mary O’Connor is a Dublin-based artist from Wexford, Ireland. Educated at TU Dublin, Chelsea College of Art, London and in New Zealand. She lived in Belize and Kazakhstan before repatriating to Dublin in 2014. She held her first solo exhibition in 2020 in SO Fine Art Edition and has shown work in numerous group exhibitions including the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, RHA Dublin, and RUA Belfast. Her work is part of several public and private collections, and she has received awards including the Arts Council Agility Award in 2021 / 2022. In 2024, she was awarded a residency and fellowship at Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Mayo and TIME OUT Art and Culture Editor Eddy Frankel selected Mary’s painting in its Top Ten at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2024. Mary is a member of Black Church Print Studio.