“If I can evoke a feeling or trigger a memory, it lights me up! How I felt at a given moment is what stays with me and what I challenge myself to recreate in my paintings…Being an artist allows me to express my perceptions of the world in ways that words fail to accomplish and to share those expressions with others in meaningful and interesting ways…Once many years ago, I woke up from a dream with these words lingering in my mind, and they have never left me. I knew exactly what they meant, and they have become a part of my artistic mission to transcend time, which is, after all, a manmade construct: ‘All that was, remembering, is.’”
Pamela O’Brien has been a compulsive creator since childhood, when her love of color, drawing, writing, and other modes of self-expression began. O’Brien has traveled extensively, and in all places, she has sought out artistic expression in a variety of forms, including architecture, visual and performing arts, food, and jewelry, among others. After earning a master’s degree in social work from Tulane University, New Orleans, O’Brien lived in Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, where she explored the customs and art of the various Native American cultures and incorporated art therapy in her treatment for adolescent patients.
After returning to her native New Orleans, she worked as a therapist, using art as a form of self-expression. On August 29, 2015, the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, O’Brien began a series of paintings to express feelings she could not adequately convey in words. These would be the first paintings to be included in a gallery exhibit. She later moved to Indianapolis and continues to study art and cultivate her career as an artist.
Website
https://pamelaobrienart.com
