MAUREEN T. O'NEILL
NOVEMBER 2 - DECEMBER 2, 2023
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Maureen O’Neill grew up in Holyoke, Massachusetts and received her B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and her M.F.A. in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. She is the director of exhibitions and educational programming for the Barton College Art Galleries and Assistant Professor of Art in the Department of Art, Barton College. She was the recipient of the Lincoln Financial Faculty Member of the Year Award in 2021. She serves on the Wilson Arts Board of Directors and leads workshops in drawing meditation and classes in pastel drawing.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Liminal space interests me. Spaces with thresholds, revealing other spaces - doorways, arches, windows, each representing a moment of transition. In my studio, I often work to combine spaces seen and felt with ones imagined – or discovered in the process of making the work. Mark by mark, a process of building and waiting – waiting for what I am looking for to reveal itself.
In the Studio
Pastel dust is piled beneath my drawing wall. The pile is like an excavation site that I often dig through for fallen push pins and pieces of color. Tonight, the most recent hue coats the top layer of the pile – this time, it’s a blue. The blue I layered inside a tall rectangle; the blue for the escape, the blue for the void, the blue for this blue feeling, or yesterday’s blue, or maybe the blue for ten years ago. It’s all the blues piled in me to be this blue, tonight. The alabaster that edges the rectangle, holds marks that suggest piles, stacks. Most of the pastel dust holds to the paper during each touch, each movement across or down, each time I choose to bury what is there, or start again. Spatial transitions in these liminal spaces, offer a chance for reflection and a stillness, before the next thing, the next moment, the next, next.
