An American artist in Berlin: Meet Mira O'Brien

After graduating from Yale University, Mira O’Brien decided to move to Berlin. "Maybe for a year", she thought. It's been five. "Most of the people who graduated with me went to live in New York. But New York is a reliable place. And I wanted to try something new." Today, Berlin is "home", even if she's thinking of maybe going back to the U.S. for a year. Also traveling a lot for her work, she describes her research trip to Uzbekistan in 2007 as "the most dramatic" one that had the greatest impact on her future work. “I was walking on a seabed that today is a salt encrusted desert,” she said, referring to the Aral Sea, “It was a unique sensation and it changed the way I see things.”

 

Through her art, Mira wants to show that things we often take for granted are neither as solid nor permanent as they appear. She’s interested in the experiential quality of materials, using shadows and lights, intangible structures, and playing with solid and dissolved matter. She also uses a variety of artistic mediums: installations, paintings, drawings, and occasionally performance. Her next solo project is “The Spoils of Transparency”, which will be shown at General Public gallery in Berlin at the end of August. The installation involves glass but sound has evolved into a focal aspect. "While the project was already in progress, the focus shifted towards sound, which is a new medium for me to work in, but I had to respond to what was happening in the piece," Mira said. Currently, she's also part of a group show called "On Looking", curated by Daniel Kingery at the Kunsthalle Galapagos in Brooklyn, New York, with her project “Splayed Window".

 

Mira joined APT Global One trust just a few weeks ago, after having heard about APT from many friends who graduated with her from art school and were selected to join. She's a participating artist at Berlin Collective, the global arts network, who introduced her to APT. "APT is unique because it is tailor-made for artists. You invest what you have: your artwork, instead of cash." Mira sees its global aspect as an additional advantage to being part of APT and looks forward to meeting many other APT artists and curators thanks to APT’s wide network.

 

Please join us in welcoming Mira as our latest member of APT Global One. We look forward to seeing a lot of her in the future.

 

If you’d like to be interviewed for an upcoming Artist Edition, or if you have some news to share with us, please contact our Press Room at media@aptglobal.org.