Maggie Mullin O'Hara, Blink, ‘Still from Two Channel 1920x1080 HD Video’, 2014. Courtesy of the Artist.

Maggie Mullin O’Hara’s works and the media she uses function so that the performances are directed at a disembodied viewer, the camera lens, which functions as a surrogate audience. In her work, the camera is also a performer, acting as a third eye. The work collapses any distinction between documentation, art object and art act. Art and the artist are inextricably interconnected, even when the audience sees only an artifact; a relic of the performance itself. The body is a vessel for emotional experience, just as photographs and videos become relics of performances. The work explores ideas of interconnectedness between the physical body and experiences of psychological balance and imbalance while proposing the possibility of fulfillment through the indeterminate.

Musings of / My / Self / As Muse is an opportunity for the artist to explain to her audience the ways in which these ideas come together to comprise her work. As an artist who has been working with her (own) self as primary subject/subject matter for the better part of a decade, O’Hara now fully explores the significance of self-portraiture, in many contexts and situations. What does it mean to be an artist working within the canon of self-portraiture today? Through a thorough examination of her works, Musings of / My / Self / As Muse will illustrate these experiences, and the conclusions drawn from them.

About the Artist

Maggie Mullin O’Hara is a multidisciplinary artist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, currently based in Columbia, South Carolina. Her work exists as a hybrid form, borrowing from the mediums of video, photography, performance, and installation. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Art in Photography within the Visual and Performing Arts Department at South Carolina State University. She has exhibited work both nationally and internationally.

For more information about Maggie and her work, visit her website at: www.maggiemullinohara.com