FINDING A POSITIVE FROM LOCKDOWNS
WHEN THE PANDEMIC PUT THE BRAKES ON MAGGIE O’HARA’S OVERSEAS RESIDENCY, THE ARTIST PUT PLAN B INTO MOTION. SHE HAS RECENTLY LAUNCHED A NEW VENTURE: BOXED, GOLD-EDGED AFFIRMATION CARDS.
When Maggie O’Hara was told she was successful in securing a coveted artist residency in Ireland, she thanked her lucky stars.
She was going to create works and have her exhibition in an Irish castle.
For the artist, this was a dream come true. The work she was going to produce in Ireland was to be an extension of her popular series, Faces of the Vault, exhibited at the Perc Tucker Gallery in 2019.
The new series would explore the psychology of colour and the different feelings this would evoke, by using the same base face, and being inspired by the Irish countryside and fauna and flora.
A week before O’Hara was due to leave for Ireland, international borders were slammed shut.
Rather than wallow in self pity from an opportunity missed, O’Hara transformed a bad situation into a positive one.
“As I was grounded and on leave with nowhere to go, I created my works and just kept creating until I got to 30 works,” she explains.
“Inspired by nature, colour and emotions, I created a series of works that can heal the viewer through colour and a connection with Mother Nature.
“They start with a one-word affirmation … to tell the story behind the piece.
“The canvases now will tell that story when I get the chance to exhibit sometime in the future.”
From her works, O’Hara has created beautifully boxed, gold-edged affirmation cards. Each unique, positive card in the set of 30 has a different image and corresponding affirmation which relates to the main colours used in the image.
During the past 12 months O’Hara has sent the Affirmation Cards to the United States, United Kingdom, New Zealand and across Australia.
“Without Covid, the idea of the affirmation cards would never have been born, and I would not have found myself going along this new pathway and meeting the most amazing people,” O’Hara tells the Weekend magazine.
“My goal is to get the affirmation cards into the hands of as many women and teenage girls as possible.”
O’Hara is calling on any business that would like to donate a box to the Women’s Centre or Headspace. She would sell them at cost price to get them to people who need them but can’t afford to buy them.
The Townsville-based artist says her work is influenced by the beauty that surrounds her in the rainforests, tropical gardens and the Great Barrier Reef.
She is a digital artist who creates colourful botanical canvases, inspired by birds, butterflies and botanicals.
O’Hara’s limited edition prints are included in numerous private collections around the world.
Her distinctive personal style evokes positive emotions in her stylised, nature-focused pieces.
In 2019 her work titled Face of the Forest won the People’s Choice Award at the Townsville Art Society annual awards and was exhibited at the Perc Tucker Regional Gallery.
This led her to develop and create the series of limited edition canvases Faces of the Forest.
In 2019, O’Hara exhibited at Umbrella studio with her piece titled Fleur selling on opening night.
Extending the Faces of the Forest series into the affirmation cards has helped O’Hara cope with the disappointments brought on by the pandemic.
“My goal is to bring positive emotion and healing energy to the viewer by connecting with nature and using colour therapy to evoke emotions of happiness and joy,” she says.
“This series was inspired by North Queensland where the soil is rich, and the colours are vibrant, where we are reminded that beauty is not about perfection, but the beautifully imperfect, and our power lies within embracing all that we are, unconditionally.
The butterflies signify profound transformation, the flowers that come back to blossom each year represent resilience, and the birds symbolise freedom, which pre-Covid we took for granted.”
O’Hara says creating art has been her way of escaping the reality and stresses of life during Covid.
“The essence of this new series is the beginning of a new journey after a long dark
road and emerging from a transformation to be more resilient and to embrace the freedom we are so fortunate to have,” she explains.
“Living in Queensland, we were luckier than the rest of the world, and the country, as our lives were only turned upside down for a relatively short period.
“All of humanity has had to make many adjustments and sacrifices.
“This journey has made us look hard at what is important to us.”
O’Hara grew up in Julia Creek and loved exploring the western Queensland landscape with her family.
On the long road trips O’Hara says she would break the monotony of the seemingly never-ending roads by reading books about exotic faraway lands.
When she was 18, she started to visit the distant lands of the books she’d read as a child. “I grew up in a very small regional town with no exposure to art or colour,” says O’Hara, who has published six children’s books including The Elly Rose Journals.
“As I travelled to various countries in Europe and Asia I was inspired by different art styles and colours.
“My artwork is a kaleidoscope of different styles. Now that I am living in North Queensland and I’m surrounded by rainforest, tropical plants, and the great Barrier Reef, so my work definitely reflects this. I use the bold tropical colours from my garden, the gorgeous bright blue and green butterflies and the muted blue tones of the Great Barrier Reef.
“I did a couple of Australian pieces and was inspired by the banksia flowers in the Blue Mountains.
“If I am working on a piece for a particular area, I’ll try to incorporate the flowers from the area.”
Go to maggieoharas.com