EXHIBIT | Piece of mind by Marley O’Brien

Sometimes all I can concentrate on is the taste of my own tongue, so I paint my whole canvas ashy brown and warm pink. Painting illustrates my headspace far better than writing could. I like enigmatic paintings with fractured surfaces and foggy narratives. I’m very inspired by German-British painter Frank Auerbach; his approach to portrait painting focuses more on the subject’s essence than on their appearance. During the last year, my practice has become centred around self-love and self-discovery.

These are my recurring thoughts, nagging obsessions and secret desires. Paintings of sticky love, quiet distances and of myself. These works are unplanned, I create them by repeatedly painting my most pertinent feelings. All the panels and canvases are repainted dozens of times, obscuring and building off of previous work.

As I work my fresh paint and my dry paint bring new meanings to each other. Some of my marks are spontaneous and made with self-assured love, others are wiped off, hated and repainted until they feel honest to me. During Covid, I embraced my naïve and juvenile side and learned to accept imperfections in my work.