MORGAN O’HARA
LIVE TRANSMISSION: conceptually based performative drawing
I am interested in the human experience of time and space. My work is culturally contextualized in the practice of drawing as a fundamental human endeavor and is continuous with the time-honored practice of drawing from life. I draw from and build on the historical continuum of the field. It requires presence, connection, direct observation and LIVE TRANSMISSION. Through this work, I transcend the arbitrary “oppositions” between abstract and figurative art, between purely gestural expression and documentary intent, creating narrative work which results in a final product which is not figurative. The drawings themselves become a third actor or mediator in the experience. That which was beneath notice becomes concretized on the page as the paper receives the image.
The method I have developed requires close observation and actual drawing in real time with multiple razor-sharp pencils and both hands. Simultaneous to an action taking place, I condense movement into accumulations of graphite line, combining the controlled refinement of classical drawing with the sensuality of spontaneous gesture. My LIVE TRANSMISSIONS render visible normally invisible or fleeting movement patterns, active trajectories, through seismograph-like drawing. The time-space coordinates for each drawing are written across the bottom of each page, thus contextualizing each activity in a specific continuum and geographic place.
1975-Time Studies
begun 1978-PORTRAITS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
155 portraits of individuals based on their individual geographic displacement patterns
1981-LIVE TRANSMISSION
2000-present THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE TRANSMISSION (Volume VI)
LARGE SITE-SPECIFIC WALL DRAWINGS