News — Kelly M O'Brien

artist fellowship: dvaa visual art award

As part of my 2026 Delaware Valley Arts Alliance Artist Fellowship, I’m expanding Botanica Lucida toward site-responsive and immersive installations. I’m also developing a research record / artist book that gathers field notes, material experiments, observations, and the evolving logic of the work.

Kelly M OBrien, *Botanica Lucida* new work in progress rendering. Cast natural polymer bioplastic, plant inclusions, steel wire mounts, lightbox, steel frame. 60 x 84 x 24 inches ©2026

Hovey Brock, *Apocalypse*. 14' x 62" Ethically sourced acrylics on cheesecloth. 2026

Upstate Art Weekend: Crazy River | Hovey Brock

Material Projects Space is pleased to welcome artist Hovey Brock for MPS’ second year as an oﬃcial venue for Upstate Art Weekend (UAW) 2026 with Brock’s solo exhibition, Crazy River.

Hovey Brock is a visual artist and writer with a focus on climate who lives and works in upstate New York and Richmond, VA. His project Crazy River draws its material from memories, epiphanies, and stories about the West Branch of the Neversink in the western Catskills.

“Neversink” is a corruption of the river’s original Lenapé name, which means something like “crazy river.” The project asks the question: What happens when environmental catastrophes upend a landscape you know and love?

Upstate Art Weekend: A GATHERINg…

Material Projects Space is pleased to launch its inaugural exhibition during Update Art Weekend 2025.

A collaborative project co-launched in the UK with curator Judith Rodgers in 2019, A Gathering calls for a progressive response to our contemporary moment of precarity - climate, political, economic, social - that resists the pull of anger and despair. Our aim is to create a propositional space with breathing room for alternative ways of thinking, expressing, and being.

The project traveled in the UK from Bristol (2019), to London (2023), to Somerset (2024). A Gathering of Unasked Possibility was at Material Projects Space, Ellenville, NY as part of Upstate Art Weekend 2025.

when we are among the trees

One-person exhibition at DVAA Loft Gallery, Narrowsburg, NY, April 5 — May 11, 2025.

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somerset reacquainted (re)view

A one-year commission to co-lead, design, facilitate, and produce artist-led professional development. From 2023 onward, Somerset Reacquainted has been a vital part of Somerset Art Works’ Artist Development Programme, functioning as a think-tank through a series of artist-led activities to focus on Somerset, UK as a place for artistic ambition, expression, and production.

project website

a spell against despair

One-person exhibition at BAU Gallery, Beacon, NY June 8 - July 7, 2024.

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Open Studios: grounded and winged

This work acknowledges the wildlife and plantlife that nourished a 5-month artist residency immersed in the woodland oasis of Byrdcliffe Colony in Woodstock, NY.

Grounded and Winged was installed for Open Studios, September 23, 2023.

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Kelly M O'Brien, *Grounded and Winged* (detail). Cast mycelium, cotton cord, wool, foraged wood, fruit, recycled tin, monofilament, paper. 140 h x 220 w x 168 inches ©2023

Kelly M O’Brien, *Ecotopia Conversation*, cast mycelium ©2023

Open STudios: ecotopia conversation

This outdoor installation was installed for Byrdcliffe Open Studios, August 26, 2023.

The title is inspired by Ecotopia a novel by Ernest Callenbach (1975) about an ecological utopia that was influential on the counterculture and green movements in the 1970s.

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open studios: materiality of care

Pop-up exhibition during Byrdcliffe Open Studios, July 22, 2023.

Having recently relocated from 12 years overseas back to the US, I’m spending the summer rehoming myself and my art practice in the Hudson Valley, NY. Working with biomaterials, I am developing objects and installations that communicate shelter, interconnectedness, and innovative approaches to care and repair for our natural world.

This series title is inspired by Matters of Care by Maria Puig de la Bellacasa.

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Kelly M O’Brien, *Materiality of Care*, Upstate Art Weekend at Byrdcliffe, installation view. 2023

Kelly M O’Brien, *Pollinator Sanctuary*. Cast mycelium, wool, cotton cord, wood. 280 x 58 x 58 cm ©2022

somerset Art weeks biennial: pollinator sanctuary

Pollinator Sanctuary was a new outdoor sculpture commissioned by Somerset Art Works for their 2022 biennial art festival. It was installed at Deer Leap Nature Reserve in the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) from August through October and then moved to Bath Spa University’s walled research garden.

The installation collaborated with nature, including living mycelium (fungi roots), wild pollinators, and plantlife.

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*Materiality* (2022), installation view. Image: Kate McDonnell

Group exhibition: materiality

A four-women exhibition celebrating the importance of materials in sculpture and installation art. Walcot Chapel, Bath, UK, April 27 — May 1, 2022.

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Residency exhibition: ruderal series

Made while artist in residence at PADA Studios, Barreiro, Portugal, February 2022. Surrounded by the the vast post-industrial ruins of the Companhia União Fabril (CUF) which was one of the largest and oldest Portuguese conglomerates from the 1930s to 1974 and later a chemical company, this series is site-responsive.

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Kelly M O'Brien, *Rudera*. Wood, found object (plastic), ice plant. 44 x 100 x 113 cm ©2022

Kelly M O'Brien, *Deconstructed Ecosystem*. Wood, mycelium, hemp, wildflowers, bird nest, beeswax, thread, glass. 250 x 52 x 52 cm ©2022

residency exhibition: deconstructed ecosystem

A functioning ecosystem requires a symbiosis of elements, creatures, and conditions. A wildflower meadow ecosystem is a never-ending cycle of cooperation among plantlife, non-human, and human players. If a ‘natural’ grassland is uncut or ungrazed it will rewild, with stronger plants crowding out the more delicate. A light, discriminate hand supports a healthy habitat, giving pollinators and birds a chance to thrive.

Made while artist in residence at PADA Studios, Barreiro, Portugal, February 2022.

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Field research: one meter quadrat

One meter quadrat is a unit of measure for field research in ecology. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, I conducted ‘safely distanced’ outdoor site visits with UK wildlife trusts, meadow conservationists, community volunteers, farmers, and amateur meadowmakers to learn more about wildflower habitats.

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Kelly M O'Brien, One Meter Quadrat, detail. Mycelium, thistle seed heads ©2021 — Kelly M O'Brien, *One Meter Quadrat*, detail. Mycelium, thistle seed heads ©2021

Kelly M O’Brien, 14 May 2020. Jesmonite, matcha powder, silicone, allium petals, paper. 12 x 17 x 7 cm ©2020 — Kelly M O’Brien, *Lockdown Studies* *14 May 2020*. Jesmonite, matcha powder, silicone, allium petals, paper. 12 x 17 x 7 cm ©2020

LOCKDOWN STUDIES

From April 2020 to Spring 2021, work made in my home studio at the height of COVID 19.

The longer we followed social distance rules, the more staying engaged with my materials kept me grounded.

Working steadily on a small scale was instructive, allowing me to cycle through concept, failure, and resolution nimbly and quickly.

There was agency and satisfaction in the process at a time when much was out of our control.

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