Katrina O'Brien

Katrina O’Brien’s, 'Of What, Does a Stone Dream?', is part of her solo exhibition, 'Dream Letter'.

O'Brien says of this work: “Part of the premise around this body of works is based on a narrative of a woman who, once she has crawled and inched her way out of a place similar to hell, finds her way to a river bank. The clearest water awaited her and she drank from it. It is there that she feels the sun on her body, her face, her soul. She sees and feels nothing but the trees around her, the grass under her feet. She hears the birds and as they sing, she sheds the ragged things that once clothed her, slips into the river, floating on her back down stream while the dirt on her body washes away.

"This woman experiences an immense freedom in being present, in looking up and watching the cloud formations in their wispy dance across the sky. In her hands she holds a small box, one she has kept safe from darkness, and one that she knew she would open again when she was far enough away from that place she stumbled out of. As she drifted downstream, she eventually came to a stop at a section of river whose bank held the most glorious stones. The woman emerged from the water so enchanted by the rocks around her and sat down. She placed the box in her lap and breathed in the sweetest air of freedom. The sounds of the forest around her became like a gentle symphony. Without looking down, she opened the box.”

O'Brien says of this series: “Text is an art form in and of itself. Decoding, flipping and dissecting words and meanings has long fascinated me. The simplicity of some of these works speak to my love of books and a nostalgia for something I can’t quite put to words. I often think of my works as chapters in a book – not made in chronological order but revisiting different parts of a narrative without a clear beginning or end, yet each page, each work is interconnected through an intricate web of dreamscapes.”