Conner O’Leary’s

Peering In

February 4- March 11, 2023

Martha's Contemporary is thrilled to announce “Peering In”: a solo exhibition of new paintings by Conner O'Leary. O'Leary's paintings take stock of the melancholic mundanity and quiet tension which colors our moments (or months) of seclusion, and brings these into focus with photo-realism that hearkens back to the Dutch and Flemish masters.

Since there have been men painting and men writing about them, there has been writing about the suffering of painters. From the black-bile melancholia of the Greeks, to Freudian propositions of loss, art history's magnetic attraction to artistic anguish has maintained itself throughout each diagnostic iteration of what we today call “clinical depression.” The anguish of the Old Masters was rarely explicit in the finished painting as they were often commissioned works, which provides fruitful juxtaposition for Conner O'Leary's approach: utilizing Flemish techniques which capture shadow and texture with such stark grace in order to depict not velvet-draped noblemen but sparse spaces filled only with worn household objects feels like both robbery and sorcery. With the finest of glazed brush strokes, O'Leary trades Van Eyck's doves and prismatic windows for scratched 1980s Baroque reproduction furniture and fly corpses, producing a punk symbolism which pilfers through the observational (O'Leary counts Philip Guston and Avigdor Arikha among his references), the surreal, and the academic to create his quiet, harsh portraits which feature no faces at all (at least—not fully human ones).

In this new series of paintings, O'Leary confronts the purported relationship between creativity and sorrow with a brash self-reflection that, refreshingly, does not discount the effect that the so-called unreal has on the real. Using only acrylic on canvas to reproduce techniques gate-kept for centuries, O'Leary reports on his solitude almost like gonzo journalism: resourcefulness and a late-onset dose of masculine anxiety take on a sort of praxis when revealing the actual through the seemingly impossible. In Domestic Sky, a two-dimensional drafting table brandishes both a plastic broom and packaged steaks glistening in bokeh light in an apparent exterior with no horizon; upon further inspection, glistening further is a tiny golden figurine perched near the top of the table featuring a woman-like figure holding up the legs of a man beneath her, a sparkle on his foot as though the artist winks at us—though whether as clue or joke remains unclear. In revealing the mysteries-as-revealed within his personal solitude, O'Leary holds the viewer at a distance for their own safety while providing a window into the symbols of our shared discontent. Regardless of our personal diagnoses or lack thereof, if we are alone, we are alone together.

Conner Michael O'Leary (b. 1990, Dallas) is a painter born and raised in Texas. Moving to Austin in 2010, O'Leary has long favored painting still lives and figurations which meditate on “quiet chaos” and combine observational traditions with Flemish naturalism and symbolism, as well as surrealism, abstraction, and a variety of others. A co-founder of Common House Gallery, his work has been featured on Booooooom.com and The Austin Chronicle, as well as other publications. O'Leary currently lives and works in Austin.

Text written by Lindsey Lascaux

Artwork Photography taken by Andrea Calo

Painting and Onions
24" x 24"
Acrylic on canvas
2022

Painting and Onions detail

Domestic Sky
36" x 48"
Acrylic on canvas
2023

Domestic Sky detail

A Healthy Winter
30" x 40"
Acrylic on canvas
2022

A Healthy Winter detail

Pink Cloth and Table
36" x 48"
Acrylic on canvas
2023

Pink Cloth and Table detail

Nomadic
18" x 24"
Acrylic on canvas
2023

Nomadic detail

Painting and Glass
30" x 40"
Acrylic on canvas
2022

Painting and Glass detail

Peering In
30" x 30"
Acrylic on canvas
2022

Peering In detail

Studio Light
18" x 24"
Acrylic on canvas
2023

Studio Light detail

Truck and Mosquito
18" x 24"
Acrylic on canvas
2022

Truck and Mosquito detail

Vase and Frame
24" x 24"
Acrylic on canvas
2023

Vase and Frame detail

Conner O’Leary with Pink Cloth and Table

Peering In Instal Shot

Peering In Install Shot