The joyous paintings in the current exhibition of Mary O'Brien Spurrier at AdventureLand Gallery are, as with every masterpiece, profundities of life and death, or rather, as suggested by the title, death and life. Such broad sweeps of any effective painting are not to include too much, but instead, to not be limited in their range and scope.
Coppice Botanicals is O'Brien Spurrier's continued painting investigations into an expanding understanding of ourselves and our surroundings, for they are as much about our bodies as they are about our environment. Including, but not limited to, presentations (not representations) of physical structures and anatomies of people and plants. Both presentations revealing more the internal life and energy as much as any external visage.
These paintings brought together with this title offer perceptions of boundless connections, contrasts and comparisons, and again, as with all compelling art, persuades with questions as well as answers. Her astounding balance of seemingly contradictory ideas both aesthetically and conceptually fill her paintings with great wonder and exhilaration.
O'Brien Spurrier brings a contemporary enthusiasm to a watercolor medium both in her drawing hand and eye for color that is at the same time both mastered and free, majestic and playful, thoughtful and instinctual, exuberant and explosive as in the way that something grows. This visual balance then in turn creates a conceptual balance that is equally rewarding (even demanding) and open enough for each viewers participation, challenges, and vulnerabilities of experience and vision. Her inventive graphics and astonishing color display not so much the what things are, but more, the marvel of how things work.