DIVUS LONDON: Mike O'Brien: TOUCH ME | exhibition

Mike O'Brien: TOUCH ME | exhibition

29.03.2013 20:00 - 22.04.2013

Divus | exhibition | en

29.3. - 22.4.2013

"With the influence of Buddhist philosophy; mainly the consideration of there being no such thing as an individual 'ego entity' but rather 'elements of existence' such as corporeality and mental formation , for which any idea of ownership or separation is simply a profoundly common delusion, the work develops and begins to articulate a more refined process of objectivity or detachment from identification, through which meditations on our condition can manifest as both uncanny and absurd."

Mike O'Brien's first UK solo exhibition showcases a series of unplanned figurative drawings combined with annotations laden with a potent sense of dark humour, absurdity and irony. Trained as a fine artist at the Limerick school of Art & Design (Ireland's “second best art college”) O'Brien's crude graphic style gives his work an immediate and accessible appeal, while simultaneously offering observant and insightful commentary on the absurdities of human relationships and modern life.

'Touch Me' draws on O'Brien's personal experience as the youngest sibling of ten, a school-boy, an art-student, and a worker of low paid, dead-end jobs. Working exclusively on cheap paper torn from waiter's notepads the drawings reveal O'Brien's interest in exposing the personal, unseen world of the individual. His work is compulsive, immersive, humorous, sexually charged, and ultimately evocative. O'Brien refuses the viewer the luxury of a chronological foothold, instead inviting us into a disorientating world where we are addressed indiscriminately by the naïve child, the street bully, the ungrateful son, the randy school-boy, the disillusioned shop assistant, the disciplinary father and the philosophical petrol pump attendant.

O'Brien's work reveals an insight into the lives of many young men in post Celtic Tiger Ireland, and indeed, in the world at large today. Economic crisis has created a kind of Neverland where the path to adulthood has become increasingly difficult to travel, leaving a trail of men-children with little better to do than to eat Cheerios, play X-Box, watch porn and doodle.

29.03.2013 20:00 - 22.04.2013

Send to e-mail Print

Comments

There are currently no comments.

Add new comment

3 krát 5
Jméno		Email

Recommended articles

If you know your way around, you might discover that every month and maybe even every week you stand the chance to receive money for your cultural project. Successful applicants have enough money, average applicants have enough to keep their mouths shut, and the unsuccessful ones are kept in check by the chance that they might get lucky in the future. One natural result has been the emergence of…

	Nick Land – An Experiment in Inhumanism
	Nick Land was a British philosopher but is no longer, though he is not dead. The almost neurotic fervor with which he scratched at the scars of reality has seduced more than a few promising academics onto the path of art that offends in its originality. The texts that he has left behind are reliably revolting and boring, and impel us to castrate their categorization as “mere” literature.

	Acts, Misdemeanors and the Thoughts of the Persian King Medimon
	There is nothing that has not already been done in culture, squeezed or pulled inside out, blown to dust. Classical culture today is made by scum. Those working in the fine arts who make paintings are called artists. Otherwise in the backwaters and marshlands the rest of the artists are lost in search of new and ever surprising methods. They must be earthbound, casual, political, managerial,…

	No Future For Censorship
	Author dreaming of a future without censorship we have never got rid of. It seems, that people don‘t care while it grows stronger again.

Calendar

Show list

TRY STUDIO DIVUS SERVICES

Open

DIVUS LIVE (blog)

Show list

04.02.2020 10:17

Slavka Kneppo:

Pověsti o těžkých časech na trhu s uměním jsou opět velmi přehnané...

Letošní 50. ročník Art Basel přilákal celkem 93 000 návštěvníků a sběratelů z 80 zemí světa. 290 prémiových galerií představilo umělecká díla od počátku 20. století až po současnost. Hlavní sektor přehlídky, tradičně v prvním patře výstavního prostoru, představil 232 předních galerií z celého světa nabízející umění nejvyšší kvality. Veletrh ukázal vzestupný trend prodeje prostřednictvím galerií jak soukromým sbírkám, tak i institucím. Kromě hlavního veletrhu stály za návštěvu i ty přidružené: Volta, Liste a Photo Basel, k tomu doprovodné programy a výstavy v místních institucích, které kvalitou daleko přesahují hranice města tj. Kunsthalle Basel, Kunstmuseum, Tinguely muzeum nebo Fondation Beyeler.

Star Wars, I.

01.01.2000 | Open

Recommended book

Open

Mad Meg: Factual Tales

Citation of the day. Publisher is not liable for any mental and physical states which may arise after reading the quote.
“	Enlightenment is always late.