Rob O'Sheeran

Painting

For the month of December, local artist Rob O’Sheeran will be featured in the FW Gallery at Woolworth Walk.

Rob was born in Williamsburg, VA, and has been an artist since childhood. He received a formal art education at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Richmond, VA, but his work continues to evolve and expand in the nineteen years that he has been in Asheville, NC where Rob lives with his wife and two children.

Rob’s work has been showcased in Charleston, SC, Greensboro, NC, Burlington, NC and Williamsburg, VA. You can find his art in several establishments and galleries in Asheville.

In Rob’s words: My artwork draws on symbols and imagery from my imagination and memory using color, play and repetition. Utilizing a sense of place and connection to environment, I embrace scenes from nature, history, and the little moments in life that resonate with everyone. The natural world is rich with patterns, from feathers to fish scales, and I reflect and explore those inherent repetitions in the design of my paintings. The emotive nature of the brushstroke reveals the richness and vitality inherent in my selected subject matters. The world is often an ironic and amusing place, and my work expresses that humor and charm that exists around us. The use of recycled windows as canvasses creates a portal to these images and memories, and offers a chance to create depth and movement. The window is an opportunity to draw the viewer into a new place or create a vantage point to view a dreamlike and stylized world. While the frames define the borders of each painting, challenging me to marry the space in front of me with the image I have in mind, the glass allows nearly endless depth to explore, layer and create. What may at first seem whimsical or free form becomes more intentional with the use of repetition and layers of color the windowpane allows. From sea life to landscapes, I draw on my experiences growing up near the ocean as well as my home in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and my paintings bridge that distance and variety of life.