Poignant Pics no. 59: On Angel O'Brien's "unendingly, an albatross"
Welcome to no. 59 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Angel O’Brien’s image, “unendingly, an albatross”
“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down.”
—Georgia O'Keeffe
In October 2020, I had a solo exhibition of work at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR. In a tandem exhibition in the adjacent room was Angel O'Brien. It was via our concurrent exhibitions that I found Angel's work. If not for the vision of the then-curator (and photographer!) Zemula Barr finding our work as intriguing compliments to each other, I might not have happened upon it. (If you are a regular reader, you know of my limited meanderings into Instagram—my brain just gets overwhelmed too quickly on that site.) I'm glad that things happened the way they did. I started to follow Angel, got to know her aesthetic, and got to know her a bit as a person, although due to COVID restrictions, I never did get to meet Angel or Zemie in person. But, you know, it worked out well for us…our shows got extended an extra month due to some or another COVID issue.
I have a particular fondness for the quirkiness that O'Brien brings to the fore with her art. While I don't know her well, in my limited experience, it seems as if it is a direct representation of Angel's personality.
unendingly, an albatross was created using both gum and platinum-palladium processes. However, Angel often uses additional hand-applied paint when she wants a specific color to come forward, which was the case with this work. To do this, she paints into particular areas of the gum coloring to achieve her desired color in a specific spot. She also stated that using a base of platinum/palladium brings "a more polished look" to gum prints, which she said often can appear "raw."
This aesthetic is representative of much of O'Brien's work. This one, however, stood out to me as a bit different. The reason? The almost wallpapered (or tattooed) look of the photo work on the woman's face. From the perspective of my life events, I see in this image someone vulnerable who was broken yet mended—not healed, not restored—but mended. Not a superwoman, but still a warrior-woman. Someone who has taken in life in its glory and its gore, gone ride or die, and then armed herself with battle paint and camouflage for the road ahead.
unendingly, an albatross
Did I get it "right?" Most likely not. Angel told me, "Perhaps you are wondering whether the figure is emerging from the wall, forest, or field of flowers? Perhaps, if the figure is instead disappearing? Or perhaps instead of disappearing, the figure is melding with this other substance, becoming some new thing. And then what would that mean—not just for the figure in this piece, what does it mean for the viewer? It isn't about why the cracks frame the eye and the lips in the way that they do, that all comes from the artistic intuition that got me into trouble in architecture school. I would know how to make things look and feel good, but I could never explain why it was so. I could not "show my work", and in many ways that is still true, but then perhaps as an artist I can be content with that in ways that I could never have been as an architect."
I hope Angel keeps making images where she "can't show the work." Because it is in those cracks—the fuzziness, the liminal spaces—that she shows us her uniqueness as an artist. Bravo, Angel!
Artist Bio
After getting her first camera, a 5x7 Cambo as a 17 year old, Angel O’Brien has been making images for almost three two decades. Her focus shifted from straight photography into experimental/collage work about 5 years ago. Much of her work incorporates fragments of paintings, sculptures, text into her pieces. Angel makes all of her prints in the darkroom using alternative process methods, such as platinum-palladium, gum-bichromate, and cyanotype.
More of her work can be found on her website at: https://https://www.5x7angel.com/
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.