Kelly O’Brien

A clairvoyant goes into a state of trance during an online development meeting. 2020.

Most Spiritualist churches run awareness classes or development groups. These group sessions give you an insight into ones psychic or mediumistic abilities. However, due to COVID these classes have been adapted so they can be communicated digitally and online. Echoing the inclusive nature of the Uk spiritualist movement.

With the news that we are going into another lockdown on Thursday I've decided to continue my experimenting with new works for the residency in my art studio. This space will be my creative bubble/workspace for the duration of the lockdown this winter. Above are some screen shots from a low res video I started to play with just for fun. Play = Creativity

Christiane Peschek - Fictions

Dominic Hawgood, Casting Out The Self.

   

Whilst researching my current practice I'm currently reading Nele Wynants - When in fact fiction. Documentary art in the post truth era.  So far, so good! "Fiction can open up the world, clarify it, but also question it. Or offer a different perspective. in addition, fiction hints at a wide range of possibilities. it allows us to think up and imagine  other realities, explore new perspectives on the future, or represent something that is hard or even impossible to represent otherwise"  

Currently soaking up the brilliance of conceptual artist Susan Hiller - Her art practice included , installation, video, photography, performance and writing. Hiller is renowned for making works which investigate often overlooked everyday phenomena. Hiller's work sheds light on her preoccupation with collecting and representing cultural signs and artefacts, often relating to dreams, visions and the unconscious. So Good!    Susan Hiller: Recall - Selected Works 1969-2004.   Susan Hiller, Homage to Marcel Duchamp: Auras. 2008.

Hi Everybody! Its Kelly here, I'm one of the artists in residence for - Present Tense, Future Perfect? This week is the beginning of the residency and I have spent the last couple of days going over my current body of work that you can view here http://areyouthere.uk. I am using this work as a springboard to develop something new during my time in this residency. My current practice explores a collaboration between photography and clairvoyance to uncover information about my estranged and deceased father. Using the insights of clairvoyants and then translating it with photography to construct a narrative around my father, a story that would otherwise cease to exist. The drive behind making this work stems from a feeling of a lack of control within my historical narrative and landscape. I see that this element that pops up within my work also has a connection to the global pandemic and how we might experience it psychologically. Where the majority of us are struggling with unpredictable change; a flux of confusing information which leads to insecurity on what our future (short and longterm) might look like. I'll leave you with one of my photographs which I keep coming back to at the moment as a departure for developing work -   

Kelly O'Brien. Inaccessible memories of an immaterial man, 2020.