Night Path

Work on Paper

DePaul Art Museum

Name/Title

Night Path

Entry/Object ID

2018.01

Description

Repeated colorful circular pattern on grey background

Artwork Details

Medium

colored pencil ink on paper

Context

O’Brien creates meticulous patterns of floral and circular forms, calling to mind mandalas or tapestries. The intricate tessellations reveals the artist’s meticulous labor, though are never wholly precise or mechanical. Instead, O’Brien’s drawings make overt reference to abstraction’s well-documented exploration of the subconscious and psychiatry. Through use of a simple motif and accessible materials he challenges questions of value, taste, and aesthetics that are often used to exclude and create hierarchies within the visual arts.

Acquisition

Accession

2018.01

Source or Donor

Nancy Frej, David Frej

Acquisition Method

Gift

Credit Line

Nancy and David Frej

Made/Created

Artist

O'Brien, William

Date made

2007

Ethnography

Cultural Region

City

Chicago

State/Province

Illinois

Country

United States of America

Continent

North America

Lexicon

Nomenclature 4.0

Nomenclature Class

Art

Nomenclature Category

Category 08: Communication Objects

Getty AAT

Concept

patterns (design elements), design elements (attributes), abstraction, forms of expression (artistic concept), artistic concepts, multicolored, color-related attributes, color (perceived attribute), flower (motif), plant-derived motifs, motifs

Hierarchy Name

Design Elements (hierarchy name), Associated Concepts (hierarchy name), Color (hierarchy name)

Facet

Physical Attributes Facet, Associated Concepts Facet

LOC Thesaurus for Graphic Materials

Meditation

Dimensions

Dimension Description

overall sheet

Width

52-1/2 in

Length

42 in

Dimension Description

overall frame

Width

44-3/4 in

Length

60-3/4 in

Exhibition

DPAM Collects: Happy Little Trees and Other Recent Acquisitions

Interpretative Labels

Label Type

Cultural/Historical Context

Label

William J. O’Brien (American, b. 1975) Night Path, 2007 Colored pencil and ink on paper Collection of DePaul Art Museum, Gift of Nancy and David Frej 2018.1 William J. O’Brien’s abstract works in ceramic, drawing, textile, and painting often borrow their forms from the aesthetics of craft. O’Brien’s work reflects what can happen when ritual, repetition, psychology, and emotion work together to inform layers of color, line, shape, and pattern. Among other motifs, his work is largely influenced by “outsider” artists and themes surrounding queer theory, Buddhism, and psychology. In Night Path, O’Brien evokes the shapes of mandalas, circular forms that can be found as early as the 14th and 15th centuries in Buddhist and Hindu art. In more recent times, these patterns were adopted by psychologist Carl Jung as explorations, through art-making, into the subconscious. Here, O’Brien assiduously hand-draws each concentric circle and shape, giving the work a meditative, psychedelic quality.