Twice the Speed of Bliss

Twice the Speed of Bliss

Paintings and Drawings by Kat O'Connor

January 13 - March 23, 2025

Opening Reception February 13, 6PM

Kat O’Connor is a full-time artist and art instructor living outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions across the United States. She is a Copley Master with the Copley Society of Artists and was honored with a Co/So Fellowship and Residency at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Massachusetts in 2023, and was a 2021 Sam and Adele Golden Foundation for the Arts Resident. She was awarded a Mass Cultural Council Fellowship for her drawings and two ArtsWorcester Material Needs Grants. She has lead painting classes in Texas, New Mexico, Italy, Greece, and throughout New England. O’Connor works in watercolor, acrylic, oil, and drawing media. Her work can be viewed at katopaints.com and @katopaints.

Artist's Statement

For me, swimming is a metaphor for painting. The painter and the viewer enter the same space, but experience it in different ways. Some elements are sharp and specific. Some elements are abstracted and can be interpreted in multiple ways. Darkness might be water or the depths of space. Bits of light could be air bubbles or stars.

Sounds are muted, light changes and bounces around in a way that doesn’t happen above water. I’m more aware of the environment around me pressing into my skin, buoyed along as if there is no gravity. Like flying in a dream, the smallest movement of an arm or leg propels me through space and time. The painter and viewer feel a momentary break from the world. Painting as a process is similar: brushmark, color, value, line, etc. add up to form a particular image, but painting is about sharing experience and transformation.

Drawing plays the same role. I have done hundreds of sketches of horses from life over the past twenty years. I thought I was practicing, figuring out just how elements of the horses’ anatomy worked together. A trip to Mongolia brought about a sea change in my thinking. Watching the Mongolians tether and tack their horses I realized that sketching has more to do with experiencing a moment than prepping for long term drawings in the studio. Each line accumulates to form an image, as each bit of rope or rawhide combines to make the halter or bridle the horse and rider needs at that moment. The horses without their tack are beautiful, but with line, collected and willing. Their strength and passion are in evidence either way, but the line assists the rider in experiencing that passion, as the drawing assists the viewer in sharing that experience.