News
Artist/Curator Curator/Artist
Suffolk University Gallery, Boston, MA
January 22 – March 8, 2024
Gallery Talk / Reception
February 1, 5pm
Image: Kathleen O’Hara, “Pot Portraits (detail)”, 2024, mixed media
Small Favors 2023
The Clay Studio, Philadelphia PA
April 29 – July 2, 2023
“We are thrilled to present Small Favors 2023, the 17th anniversary of this beloved exhibition. It will be on view in our new building for the first time just as we are celebrating our first anniversary at 1425 N American Street in April. Among almost 400 small artworks displayed in 4-inch cubes you will find big ideas, individuality, and material awareness. To celebrate that this truly is an exhibition for everyone, a few years ago, we began inviting artists outside of the ceramic world to participate. This year we are excited to have art in wood, metal, glass, fiber, paper, and paint. The majority of the works are examples of small ceramic artworks that range from tiny mugs to intricate sculptures.
“Artists represented in Small Favors range from the most established ceramic artists in the field, to young artists new to the field. Small Favors engages artists’ creativity in new and exciting ways with the challenge of making pieces on a very small scale. For some artists, the work they create is similar to what they normally make, but at a reduced scale. Others use it as an opportunity to break away from what they create in their daily studio practice. There is an open call each year for juried work, as well as a group of invited artists who participate. This year we have artworks coming from Japan, China, and Budapest in addition to those from around the United States.”
Image: Kathleen O’Hara, “Pilmigration Flask/Nike”, 2022, porcelain, oxides, leather
Becoming Trees
Curated by Fritz Horstman
Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord MA
March 31 – May 8, 2022
“The exhibition Becoming Trees brings together the work of fifteen artists whose depiction of trees evinces a variety of approaches to empathy for the subject. The body of the tree and the human body are compared and conflated. The threshold between what is human and what is nature is critiqued, massaged, and permeated; poked at with fingers and with branches; hugged and held at arm’s length.” – Fritz Horstman
Kathleen O’Hara’s installation Fruits de la Terre (Fruit of the Loam) occupies the gallery’s corner storeroom. O’Hara’s installation can only be seen by looking through a hole in a door. As the viewer peeks into darkened space, they see a world of light and shadow populated by ceramic mushrooms. Meant to honor the unseen fungal world that is so important to forest welfare, this secret environment evokes the complexity and mystery of the forest ecosystem.
Lockets And Lace
Curated by Beth Kantrowitz and Stephanie Putland
Jameson & Thompson, Jamaica Plain, MA
June 1 – July 29, 2021
Candice Smith Corby
Samantha Fields
Monica Johnson
Carl Majewski
Jennifer Liston Munson
Kathleen O’Hara
Stephanie Putland
‘Miss Marple’, 2021, mixed media on canvas with curtain, 20x16x2”
Women At Work
Co-curated by Beth Kantrowitz and Janet Hicks
One Mile Gallery, Kingston, NY
July – August, 2020
‘Servers’, 2017, latex, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 18 x 14″
Curated by David Duddy
Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord MA
October 29-December 13, 2020
The medium of clay is a tremendously malleable and expressive material. This group of talented and inventive contemporary artists bring their vision and skill to the creation of stories and worlds for viewers to interpret and reflect upon.
Kathleen O’Hara is included in this exhibition. Her hand-built Pilgrim Flasks are faux relics, replicas of ancient vessels embellished with shoe impressions from a variety of shoes to honor the hopeful treks made by all peoples seeking salvation.
‘Pilgrim Flask/Nike’, 2020, stoneware, iron oxide and rutile wash with leather thong, 3 x 3.25 x 1.75”
Carole Calo Gallery
Stonehill College, Eastham, MA
March 31 – May 8, 2019
“Kathleen O’Hara’s installation is a meditation on memory and the remnants of shared correspondence. Influenced by her family’s greeting card business, she transformed the Carole Calo Gallery into a homage to this history and the relics of civil communiqué. More than a sentimental remembrance, she takes the handicraft of pre-digital communication and created a new body of work that plays on her keen eye for design along with text and imagery, combined with uncanny allure. Inspired by her family’s vintage greeting card albums from the 1940’s, she plays with nostalgic materials such as contact paper, label makers, and stencils to source the deep psychology of longing and being understood.
O’Hara partly recreated the company’s 1970’s showroom in New York City with a large constructed wall featuring her handmade wallpaper, drawings using vintage card imagery, and inset framed works. Also included were a series of glitter Rorschach drawing/collages, and a grid of 5×7” text panels with phrases extracted from greeting card wishes. In the center of the gallery, one of the original vintage albums was displayed on a pedestal.”
– Candice Smith Corby, Artist. Director, Carole Calo Gallery, Stonehill College