Maggie O’Brien

Like most artists, Maggie’s art practice tends to be influenced by her immediate environment. In 2006 she moved from London to Cornwall and began to paint the stunning Cornish landscape. She paints outside whenever possible and is most concerned with the elemental, with the effects of weather and light and the changing seasons. She uses a variety of techniques and materials and the work is a mixture of place, memory and imagination.

She lives next to a farm above a remote cove between Porthcurno and Lamorna. Wooded Valleys, sheltered coves and gentler weather encourages an abundance of wild life in this part of Cornwall and this has inevitably crept into her work. It is informed by the ancient cycles of life on the farm, by the birds that nest in the barns and trees and by the creatures that inhabit the woods and fields.

A lifelong love of animals has become something deeper and richer, with a new sense of the mysterious connectedness of things in this wild and remote part of Cornwall. With this sense of connection however, there is increasing concern and growing sense of responsibility about the way we treat those beings who share the planet with us. The latest research shows they have rich emotional lives and high levels of communication. Her latest work explores our relationship to animals and birds and what she believes we can learn from them. In the past her work has included studing the pollution of our oceans, immigration, personal and collective memory, and the institution of marriage.