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EXHIBITION

Helen O’Leary
The Geometry of Dirt

Artist Talk & Reception
Tuesday, October 28 | 6:30 pm

Admission: FREE

Photo Credit: Cody Goddard

Helen O’Leary
The Geometry of Dirt

October 14-January 5

Gallery viewings by appointment
Monday-Friday | 10 am – 6 pm
Please call 212-757-3318

Working with a radical attitude towards tradition, Helen O’Leary is influenced by memories of growing up on a County Wexford farm, and uses simple materials and unglamorous gestures to reapply her own story to her art form. By dissembling the wooden structures of previous paintings—stretchers, panels, and frames—O’Leary transforms and reinterprets the original painting’s rules to offer a fresh perspective on the artistic experience. With both serenity and abandon, these sculptures imagine the possibility that painting might take root and find a place to press forward into fertile new terrain.

Artist Helen O’Leary was born in County Wexford, Ireland, and studied at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin before coming to the United States to continue her studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (B.F.A., 1987, M.F.A., 1989) and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. She joined the faculty of the School of Visual Arts at Penn State in 1991 where she is currently a Professor of Art. O’Leary’s art has been honored with fellowships at The Guggenheim under The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and at Culturel Irlandaise, two Pollock-Krasner awards (1989, 1996) and a Joan Mitchell Award for painting and sculpture (2000).

Helen O'Leary's upcoming exhibition The Geometry of Dirt is featured on Sharon Bulter's Blog Two Coats of Paint. Learn more about what influences O'Leary here.

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Administrative office phone 212-757-3318 fax 212-247-0930
553 West 51st Street, New York, NY 10019 | DIRECTIONS
General information info@irishartscenter.org
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Irish Arts Center programs, are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.	Irish Arts Center programs, are made possible, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.	Irish Arts Center programs are supported, in part, by Culture Ireland, the agency for the promotion of Irish arts worldwide.
Irish Arts Center programs are supported, in part, by government partners including the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council; Culture Ireland, the agency for the promotion of Irish arts worldwide; the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Consulate of Ireland in New York; the Northern Ireland Bureau; British Council Northern Ireland; the Arts Council of Northern Ireland; The American Ireland Fund; Howard Gilman Foundation; Tourism Ireland; Bloomberg Philanthropies; and thousands of generous donors like you.