Taylor Galleries is proud to present OZIO, a three-person exhibition of new work by Nataly Maier, Janet Mullarney and Helen O’Leary. OZIO draws on the original Greek meaning of the word rather than the contemporary dictionary and cultural translation from the Italian, “sloth”. It is that space that occurs when there is nothing to do but devote oneself totally to following an unknown, for no particular purpose.

For OZIO Nataly Maier has made hundreds of small abstract watercolour paintings. The work, installed around the room like a frieze, documents a specific colour palette on a vast scale, sourced over the years through her many visits to art galleries around Europe studying masterpieces, especially those dating from the Renaissance period. The paintings are made with egg tempera, a medieval technique and also a sign of respect to medieval art.

Janet Mullarney’s work encompasses a variety of media, and her sculptures have frequently combined wood, bronze, foam, glass, rubber, papier-mâché, textiles, terracotta, plaster and wax. References to surrealist, religious and mythological iconographies, as well as art history, are ever- present in her work. However for this show, in this present body of work, a change has happened – persuaded by ozio, she has opened up unexpected terrains using particularly apt papers and forms, discovering amygdalae and monte analoghe connecting to a very old sketch done on a very old envelope.

Helen O’Leary knits with wood, bending the painting out of the ruin of its own making. Each piece is cobbled together from the detritus of earlier attempts. The backs of these pieces show the construction and the fronts are cushioned with layers of linen and egg tempera. She constructs the supports in the same way that she makes the ‘paintings’, using high-brow painting techniques like egg tempera and fresco to coat the supports. Her studio is an archaeological site whose fabric displays the ravages of age, a compendium of erasures, deliberate archaisms, renovations and restorations, each piece commenting on its predecessor.

Born in Munich, Germany in 1957, Nataly Maier attended Leibniz-College, Tübingen in 1977 and between 1978 and 1980 completed her studies at the Fotoschule, Munich. In the late 1980s she began making works that combined photography with other mediums, creating her first photo-sculptures and photo-diptychs, methods that she continues to use in her work to the present day. She has exhibited widely in group and solo exhibitions in Italy, Germany and beyond, and since 2010 has spent time working at Ballinglen Arts Foundation in North Mayo, where her work is greatly influenced by the light. She currently lives between Starnberg, Germany and Milan, Italy.

Born in Dublin in 1952, Janet Mullarney studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti and Scuola Professionale di Intaglio in Florence and divides her time between Italy and Ireland. Awards include the RUA Perpetual Silver Medal (2009), RHA Sculpture Award (2008), Irish American Cultural Institute’s O’Malley Award (2005) and a Pollock Krasner Foundation Award (1998). A member of Aosdána and Associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, she has exhibited extensively both in Ireland and abroad. Her most recent large-scale exhibiton, My Mind’s I, completed a nationwide tour in 2017-18, and she will be showing at IMMA in February 2019.

Born in Co. Wexford in 1961, Helen O’Leary attended the National College of Art & Design, Dublin and went on to receive a BFA and MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1987 and 1989 respectively. Awards include the Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome (2018), Hennessy Purchase Award, IMMA (2018), John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2010/11), the Joan Mitchell Award for Painting and Sculpture (1999), two Pollock-Krasner Awards (1996, 1989), and several grants from The Arts Council. She has participated in residencies in the US and France and is currently a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. She lives between Jersey City, USA and Leitrim, Ireland.