Twenty five small-scale oil on canvas works are spread through the exhibition space of The Custom House Studios + Gallery in Westport, County Mayo. The works have a quality that O’Leary has perfected - capturing the sublime in the everyday and, in so doing, reminding viewers that the line between the two is much finer than we take for granted.
This new body of work presents views of suburban neighbourhoods on Long Island, where O’Leary herself lives and works. The paintings focus on small, closely-cropped, areas like a roof or a driveway. Each composition feels as if it had been selected from photographs taken quickly from a moving vehicle driving through New York State - none of them perfectly centred, their subject matter banal, and all buildings seemingly much the same as the next.
