Michael Patrick O’Brien “Familiar Address” at University of New Orleans

In his photographs of family members and familial spaces, O’Brien translates the family’s lineage and spaces as sites of both repetition and evolution. Genetics are inherited, body postures are echoed, the formality of interiors is mimicked, values are passed down, death is present, children appear, religious customs are passed down, and family traditions persist and transform. With a photographer’s formal rigor, O’Brien’s starting point is an attention to color and light, yet scale shifts, the articulation of architectural spaces, and an alternation between flatness and depth all provide narrative potential within the photographs and between them. Some pictures depict an immediate, often intimate moment, while others do not seem to be rooted in a moment but instead suggest open-ended stillness and quiet.

At the heart of the project is the pull between being an individual while also being a member of a family, and the competing feelings of loneliness and belonging that ensue. The photographs lie between distance and intimacy. Within a family, one can observe with an outsider’s eye while possessing an insider’s knowledge.

Michael Patrick O’Brien “Papa” 2016
inkjet print, 32″ x 40 ”

Michael Patrick O’Brien “Papa’s Room After He Died” 2016/2017 inkjet print
32″ x 40″

Michael Patrick O’Brien “Charlie” 2016
inkjet print,
32″ x 40″

About the artist

A photographer of things, people, and spaces who owes as much to the practitioners large format photography as to representational painters such as Catherine Murphy, John Singer Sargent, and Fairfield Porter, Michael Patrick O’Brien images people and places known to him, primarily family, in an ongoing and open ended body of color photographs. This image-by-image engagement with familiar people and places forms a consistent practice within his broader work as an artist.

Michael Patrick O’Brien (b. 1988, Houston, TX) earned his BA from Washington and Lee University, Lexington, VA (2010). Recent exhibitions include Memoir, Bank of America Center, Houston (2018); Thanks in Advance, Bill’s Junk, Houston (2018); and The Big Show, Lawndale Art Center, Houston (2017). O’Brien lives and works in Houston, TX.

Michael Patrick O’Brien “Familiar Address” 

December 8, 2018 – January 5, 2019

St. Claude Gallery University of New Orleans

New Orleans, LA

Framing Specifications

Painted white gallery frame with spacer and strainer

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Profile: 101
Type: Standard Gallery Frame
Wood & Finish: maple frame with painted white finish
Purchasing Option: joined wood frame
Custom Wood Spacer: 1/2″ wood frame spacer
Custom Wood Strainer: 3/4″ wood frame strainer
Custom Frame Acrylic: 1/8″ UV acrylic cut to size
Custom Frame Backing Board:  1/4″ archival coroplast cut to size

“Time Frames: Contemporary East Asian Photography” exhibition has more than 40 modern and contemporary photographs by artists mostly born in China, Japan, South Korea, or Vietnam who delve into various concepts of time. Their images could be focused on a time of day, a past legend or history, or an imagined future.

“Time Frames showcases recent important gifts to the BMA’s outstanding photography collection as well as rarely shown works by East Asian artists working in this medium,” said BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford. “The extraordinary range of these works extends from hyperbolic and contemplative images to personal experiences and collective histories.”

The exhibition includes photographs, books, prints, and a hand scroll drawn primarily from the BMA’s collection. These works have never been shown in Baltimore or haven’t been displayed by the BMA for decades.

Daido Moriyama. Tokyo. 2008, printed 2012. Collection of Brenda Edelson, Santa Fe © Daido Moriyama

Noh Suntag. Red House No. 01‑13. 2007, printed 2011. From the series Ephemeral. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Brenda Edelson, Santa Fe, BMA 2018.93. © Noh Suntag

Lê Van Khoa. Rescue. 1974. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of the Artist, BMA 1978.16.3. © Lê Van Khoa

The Baltimore Museum of Art

The BMA’s internationally renowned collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the famed Cone Collection of modern art, as well as one of the nation’s finest holdings of prints, drawings, and photographs. The galleries showcase an exceptional collection of art from Africa; important works by established and emerging contemporary artists; outstanding European and American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts; ancient Antioch mosaics; and exquisite textiles from around the world.

The 210,000-square-foot museum is distinguished by a grand historic building designed in the 1920s by renowned American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped gardens featuring an array of 20th-century sculpture.

Time Frames: Contemporary East Asian Photography

November 4, 2018, to March 24, 2019

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD

Framing Specifications

Painted black gallery frame with spacer and strainer

Painted white gallery frame with spacer and strainer

METRO GALLERY FRAME

Profile: 101
Type: Standard Gallery Frame
Wood & Finish: maple frame with white or black painted finish
Purchasing Option: joined wood frame
Custom Wood Spacer: 1/2″ wood frame spacer
Strainer: 3/4″ wood strainer with crossbar