‘Gestures of Persistence’ opens at Non-Fiction
Written by Joaquin Trapero & Asli Shebe
Photographed by Quint Scott
On Friday, Oct. 9, Maggie O’Hara — a photography graduate student from Pittsburg, Pennsylvania — presented her MFA thesis exhibition at the Non-Fiction Gallery on 1522 Bull St. The gallery was composed mostly of video projections, but also included a few photographs. According to the artist, she derived the theme for her thesis from the relationship between the mental and physical body.
“Her work is so mesmerizing with a strong vision about women,” said Heather Patridge, a SCAD 2013 graphic design alumn. “To me, it was kind of freeing yourself of captivation.”
O’Hara noted that her original theme for her thesis was her anxiety. After researching the human body she went in a different direction.
“Almost all of the works show the idea of a frustrated desire, in which a certain action is never fully finished, but goes in a constant loop,” said O’Hara.
Another major aspect of her work is that it is all in black and white.
“I didn’t want my pictures to be in color because color makes them look like an everyday performance,” said O’Hara, emphasizing the fact that black and white makes the work more universal and less about her and more about the performance.
The artist explored other medias in her exhibit by adding projection and videos into her piece.
“Despite being a photography major, her thesis is not all about photography but moving images,” said Finn Schult, a fourth-year SCAD photography student from Miami, Florida. “It’s different from what you see in other department, which I like,” Schult added later.
O’Hara noted that she choose the Non-fiction Gallery for it’s movable walls and that she needed a space big enough to place the videos and audio. Regarding her inspiration, O’Hara stated that she doesn’t like looking at other artists as she doesn’t want to become heavily influenced by them.
“There was period in time where I first started doing video work: I was looking at other people’s works. As a consequence, my work became too similar to theirs so I stopped,” O’Hara shared.
The exhibit ran from Oct. 9-12. For more information about the artist visit the Non-fiction Gallery’s website.
