Katrina O’Brien’s striking works of ink, acrylic and graphite sway between painting and drawing. Indeed, Katrina sees her artwork as a kind of dance, and a way of delving into her own and others’ inner psyche.

Says Katrina: ” This work carries parts of a story that came to me in the last few months while listening to various music. Sometimes when I work, it’s like I go to a place far away and I get lost there for a bit. Lost in a good way – but sometimes I lose sense of time and space. The story walks with me wherever I go and becomes so entwined in my work that it also becomes my life. These are the places that I walk, that I drift off to when I sleep or when I wake.

“I have an overactive imagination. Throughout my life I’ve maintained a child-like curiosity of things. Not childish, but I am filled with wonder at a great many things – perhaps this is why my work seems so free. The moment we lose wonder for something, it becomes an ordinary object or just another thing passing by – and we end up drowning in the mundane mediocrity of everyday life. Perhaps working with children helps me to see from a child’s perspective more often. But the truth is, my mind has always been curious. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I can be amazed by seemingly small things… and often.

“I piece those small things together and they become a spectacular solar system of meaning. Then I join the various solar systems together and I see universes of compelling beauty and complexity. I see so many things. It can be quite overwhelming to have a mind that is constantly connecting things. Sometimes picking a path through all the thoughts and landscapes can be hard.

“My mind often jumps ahead of me, even as I’m working on something. I see in front of it, I see what’s behind it and I see it in the here and now. You can pluck works and words from my history and connect them with my most recent pieces. It’s a continuous string of stars plucked from the universe, each holding a different space but each connected like a constellation in the sky.

“This has always been my creative process. Over the years I’ve become better at choosing a path through a work and articulating where it comes from.”