Born in the City of the Angels, Morgan O'Hara spent her childhood in a fishing village in Japan.  She studies Buddhism, psychology, geography, languages, aikido, shiatsu and music.  Her work falls naturally into two parts:  TIME STUDIES, which she has done on a daily basis since 1971, and time-space work (LIVE TRANSMISSIONS, FORM AND CONTENT, PORTRAITS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY) which has resulted in many interdisciplinary collaborations.   Strong links to the international jazz and new music scene.  O'Hara lives and works in New York and Italy. 

In the United States she has shown and/or performed in New York (The New Museum, The Drawing Center, Gracie Mansion Gallery, Experimental Intermedia Foundation, The Knitting Factory, Stephen Gang Gallery, 128 Rivington, Emily Harvey Gallery), Boston (Mobius), California (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Works Gallery, New Langton Arts, San Francisco Art Institute, The Exploratorium, Kala Institute, XII International Sculpture Conference, Oakland) and Philadelphia (Nexus Gallery, Southern Alleghenies Museum, The White Box). 

Internationally she has shown and/or performed in Austria (Forum Stadtpark, Schwarzenberg'sche Meierei); Belgium (Logos, Palais des Beaux Arts, Brussels); Czech Republic (Muzeum Sumperk, Sklenená Louka, Galeria Sypka); France (GERM/New Music Institute, Paris); Germany (Galleries Rainer Borgemeister, Elicona, Petersen, Moltkerei Werkstatt, Waschhaus, Podewil, Harlekin Art); Holland (Galerie Singel, De Fabriek, Apollohuis, De Witte Dame); Hungary (Studio Vajda Lajos, Folyamat, Iparmuveszèti Museum); Italy (Milano Poesia, La Maddalena, Galleria Manuela Allegrini); Japan (Belca House, Kyoto); Poland (Miedznarodowe Centrum Sztuki, Galleries Wschodnia, Dziekanka, Piwna); Slovakia (Museum of Modern Art of the Warhol Family, Slovak Philharmony Hall, Galeria K); Switzerland (Kunsthalle Bern, Galerie Lydia Megert, Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts, Lausanne). 

O'Hara has performed LIVE TRANSMISSION drawings with Malcolm Goldstein (violin), Anthony Braxton (reeds), Joe Fonda (bass), Booker T. Williams, Elliott Levin, Ulrich Krieger (saxophones), Lutz Rath (cello), Giuseppe Englert (organ), Maurice de Martin (snare drum), Peter Zummo (trumpet), Dietmar Diesener (trombone), Jon Gibson (clarinet, PVC), Amy Rosen and Derek Bernstein (aikido), Armando Cavagnis (mattressmaker), Giorgio Frontini (pastry chef), Jan Schwerklies (carpenter), Tilman Ehrenstein (radiologist, MRI), Dalibor Chatrny (artist). 
 
 
 

Artist's Statement

The most immediate sign of life is movement.  LIVE TRANSMISSION drawings render normally invisible movement patterns visible through seismograph-like drawings done in real time.  The pulse of life is carefully observed and simultaneously tracked with two or more pencils.  Recorded are the hand movements of people engaged in human activity.  On occasion, other signs of life are also recorded:  movement of leaves on a tree, movement of light reflections on water, movement of the incoming tide.  LIVE TRANSMISSIONS fall into many categories; people at work:  cooks, secretaries, butchers, shoemakers, mattress makers; dancers:  both individuals and troupes; musicians:  soloists, ensembles and conductors; poets, artists, lecturers, politicians, artisans, children, athletes, martial artists, etc.  The ongoing series was begun as a private joke at a wildly expressive dinner table on an Italian farm in 1989.

FORM AND CONTENT is a series of ink works based on graphite drawings in the LIVE TRANSMISSION series.  Whereas the LIVE TRANSMISSIONS are done in real time by observing and recording a life activity in "the field," the FORM AND CONTENT series evolves as research in the studio.  LIVE TRANSMISSIONS are pored over, studied, categorized, philosophized over, photocopied, enlarged, reduced and grouped according to themes.  Information (an essential element of the drawing) is studied and series are set up, broken down, regrouped, thrown out, retrieved and rehung until a body of 36 works comes together in crystalline form:  concept, image, meaning, subtle internal references, humor, text, scale, paper, ink, and degrees of refinement.  Scientific analogies are useful but this is art:  method and process adapt as art and life require evolution.  Change is the essential prtocess of all life forms.  Both the inner structure as well as the visible manifestations of this work are subject to continual renewal and transformation as required by life.  Sometimes these forms are painted directly on walls, many times enlarged, as installations.

The evolving concept for LIVE TRANSMISSION collaborations with musicians begins with a drawing which comes from life movement and has a stabilized visible form.  Using the visible and structural elements of the drawing as source for musical composition, the composer creates an acoustic work.  Then, when the musical work is performed, the artist, as member of the ensemble, transmits live the movement of the hands of the musicians performing the musical work.  Through the use of  projection and other technologies, the audience sees and hears  musicians, conductor and artist performing.  The drawing in progress grows in real time as the music progresses, thereby collapsing the distance in time and space between art and life.  The audience, musicians and artist live the work at the precise moment of its creation.
 
 

Research and Production Grants

Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Irish Film Center Studio, Dublin, Ireland; Studio Akustische Kunst, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Köln, Germany; Harvestworks Studio Pass, New York; National Endowment for the Arts Interarts Grant, with composer Pauline Oliveros; Fessenden Foundation travel grant; Djerassi Foundation and Hand Hollow Foundation residencies. 

 
 
CONTACT INFO:    106 Mac Dougal Street 12  New York, New York  USA  10012-1270   
T. 001.212.473.7391
F. 001.212.989.7590

Studio: Via Maironi da Ponte 66 Bergamo, Italia 24123
T. 0039.35.240.874
F. 0039.35.230.744