PAINTINGS — MEL O'CALLAGHAN

PAINTINGS

Ancestral cavern, 2024, acrylic and enamel paint on glass, bronze, cinnabar vermillion, diptych 160 x 280 cm

Firefly that sparks and goes out, 2024, acrylic paint on glass, copper, gold, phosphorescence 160 x 140 cm

Before prehistory there was a prehistory of the prehistory, 2024, acrylic paint on glass, copper, gold, malachite, phosphorescence 100 x 80 cm

Creature of echoing caves, 2024, acrylic and enamel on glass, copper, silver, tyrian pigment, cinnabar vermillion 160 x 140 cm

I hear the ancient music of words upon words, 2024, acrylic paint on glass, bronze, cinnabar vermillion 160 x 140 cm

A light-year embrace, 2024, acrylic and enamel paint and ink on glass, tyrian pigment and silver 100 x 80 cm

Life seen by life, 2024, acrylic and enamel paint on glass, azurite, cinnabar vermillion 160 x 140 cm

Photo: Laura Moore

‘LIVE ECHO’
CASSANDRA BIRD GALLERY, SYDNEY
FEB 3 - MAR 30, 2024

Agua Viva (LM-JK), 2023, acrylic paint on glass, phosphorescence, ink 160 x 140cm

Snakes entwine while the stars tremble, 2023, acrylic paint on glass, titanium, phosphorescence, bronze, silver, ink 160 x 280cm

Blood of Nature, 2023, acrylic paint on glass, silver, ink 160 x140cm

Photo: Elyse Bouvier & John Dean

‘PULSE OF THE PLANET’
ESKER FOUNDATION, CALGARY
JUNE 27 - AUG 27, 2023
Co-curated by Shauna Thompson and Peta Rake

The titles of these paintings are drawn directly from Água Viva, a 1973 novel by the Brazilian author Clarice Lispector. Unconventional in form, the mystical novel uses no structure other than double paragraph breaks, lacking chapters or sections. The novel is framed as a meandering monologue from an artist, perhaps speaking to a lover, the public, or the world itself. In Portuguese, Água Viva literally means "living water", linking to the work’s fluid prose, but it also translates to "jellyfish." Água Viva’s first English translation in 1989 was titled Stream of Life, highly relevant to the ways the ocean and its many lifeworlds have become a key site of investigation and collaboration for the O’Callaghan over the last decade. Lispector’s text binds together many research thematics in the O’Callaghan’s practice—such as submergence, resonance, planetary shifts, climate pasts and futures, interspecies living—all of which draws together our innate impulse to connect with one another and to Earth’s inexplicable forces.