MAUREEN O'HARA URE
Artist Statement
For the past several years, my paintings have featured animals in imaginary landscapes. I adapted these creatures from historical forms first encountered in my travels, in medieval stonework, manuscripts, and other museum artifacts. Populating scenes with assorted beasts has opened up rich possibilities for narrative and for metaphor, as in 3 recent solo exhibitions exploring themes of war and peace, Paradise and the Fall.
Artist Bio
Maureen O'Hara Ure is an Assistant Professor Lecturer at the University of Utah, where she teaches Painting and Drawing, and an introductory lecture course on contemporary trends. As faculty affiliated with the Honors College, she conducts a seminar on Creative Process. She has had many one-person exhibitions, has participated in Sundance Institute Playwrights Lab, and over the years, has received several grants in support of her work. In addition to shows in Los Angeles, at SPACE, in Chicago at ARC/Raw Space, and at Matrix Gallery, Sacramento, O'Hara Ure exhibits regularly in Salt Lake City in assorted non-profit spaces, and at Phillips Gallery, where her most recent show, Sightseeing, featured a series of paintings in response to the Byzantine mosaics in Ravenna, Venice, and Istanbul. With her long-time collaborator, poet Katharine Coles, she will mount an exhibition of image and text at Finch Lane Gallery next October, and plans to produce a bestiary, a letterpress book, next year.
