Jill O'Bryan

ARTIST + WRITERS IN CONVERSATION 🗣️ In collaboration with the Santa Fe International Literary Festival (@sfinternationallitfest ), join us at the gallery for a talk between artist Jill O’Bryan (@jillobryan ) with poet Rick Barot (@rickbarot1 ) and author Laura Paskus (@laurapaskus ) about the unique ways in which art, nature, and poetry intersect. 🗓️ Thursday, May 14 ⏰ 5 - 6pm 📍Pie Projects, 924B Shoofly Street, Santa Fe, NM *This event is free admission with open seating, no rsvp required. #pieprojects #jillobryan #rickbarot #laurapaskus #SFILF2026

I am delighted to be exhibiting at Pie Projects Contemporary Art, Santa Fe, with my new ground paintings and breath drawings. Curated by Alina Borsa, Director of Pie. Thank you Alina for your collaborative spirit, your vision, imagination, and the opportunity to exhibit artwork in your beautiful space. The preview and opening were wonderful events last weekend! Here are a few shots... "Jill O'Bryan: A New Breath" is up until June 6th. 1. Jill O'Bryan, David Sheinbaum, and Janet Russek in front of "Ground Pantings". 2. Toby Jurovics, Director of The Barry Lopez Foundation for Art and Environment; Jill; Alina Borsa, Director, Pie Projects; Devendra Contractor, dnca architects, designed Pie Projects as well as the Vladem Contemporary Art Museum in Santa Fe (with Studio GP). 3. Devendra Contractor in front of "Ground Paintings". #contempraryart #painting #contemporarypainting #frottage #santafeart

Happy Earth Day 🌎 Jill O’Bryan (@jillobryan ) gets about as close as you can- lying on the New Mexican desert floor and rubbing its surface directly onto paper for her desert frottage series. Images: 1. © Jill O’Bryan, frottage drawing- photo: Alison Sirico. 2. © Jill O’Bryan, ‘Ground Painting,’ 2025, ink stick and oil on canvas, 120 x 72 in. 3. Jill O’Bryan, installation view, Texas State Galleries, museum at Texas State University, San Marcos, TX. #pieprojects #jillobryan

Upcoming exhibition!! "Jill O’Bryan: A New Breath" May 2–June 6 opening: May 2, 4-6 pm Pie Projects, Santa Fe "Breath Circle 6" Graphite, Gold Leaf, Gold Leaf Thread on Bhutan Mitsumata paper. 20 x 16 inches. Constructing a drawing breath by breath, layering twenty inhales and exhales one over the next until they wear through an upper sheet of paper and transfer marks onto a sheet beneath where shadows of the breath marks abide on the right half of the circle. Sewn together with gold-leafed thread, the two halves form a circle. @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery #breathdrawing #drawing #contemporaryart #meditationdrawing

"Breathing into the Moon" (2023) Each: 10.5 x 10.5 inches Watercolor, acrylic, graphite, mixed media on Bhutan Mitsumata paper Was thinking of the feminine in the moon and Enheduanna, Sumerian priestess of the Moon God Nanna, and poet (c. 2300 BC) in the Sumerian city of Ur. In Enheduanna's text "Exaltation of Innana" she declared herself: "I, Enheduanna..." and become the first named author in world literature. A beautiful exhibition of work about Enheduanna was at the Morgan Library in 2023: "She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 B.C." @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery #painting #drawing #contemporary painting #contemporary drawing #moonpainting #moondrawing #meditationdrawing

"Breathing into the Moon" 2023 Graphite, watercolor, gouache, gold leaf on Bhutan Mitsumata paper 10.5 x 10.5 inches Triangles, for me, render expansion into infinity; circles render cycles--the cycles of breath, the cycles of the moon, and the shapes of Earth and the moon. @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery #drawing #painting #contemporaryart #art #works on paper

Exhibition at [TXST] Texas State Galleries in 2018. Invited by (then Director) Margo Handwerker, this exhibition included seven large Ground Frottage Drawings and a room full of Breath Drawings. It was delightful to interact with the students in the School of Art and Design during installation, artist's talk, and a critique where I was invited to see the student's incredibly innovative, smart, and creative artwork. Thank you Texas State! @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery @txstgalleries #frottagedrawings #drawing

"Rock, Paper, Breath" (2012) Gallery Joe, Philadelphia. Frottage drawings made out on the land in New Mexico. Each: Graphite on paper, 6 x 6 feet. Gallery Joe no longer exists, but I am so grateful to Becky Kerlin for this exhibition, and for the catalog that accompanied the exhibition. Photos: Ken Yanoviak @galleryjoe @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery #frottage #drawing #contemporaryart

"Mapping Resonance", 2017, CCA Santa Fe The plaster cones were cast in my studio using sheet metal molds. I did not remove the cones from their molds for months because I was terrified at what I would find but releasing them was a rewarding experience. The sheet metal had rusted and left beautiful marks on the outsides of them, birthmarks if you will. The original plan was to fill them with different colored soils from the land (from silver green to orange red adobe) but as I lived with them I realized that they were already full of light, and that the original intent, embedded in the cone shape--a single point giving rise to a shape that reaches out into infinity--was fully realized when looking down into them to see the point from within. Everyone who came into my studio ran over to each of them to look down inside at the inverted point. As inside, outside... @ccasantafe @pieprojects.santafe @rulegallery #sculptureart #sculptureart #sculptureartist

“Mapping Resonance” (2017) Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe What an honor it was to exhibit in the beautifully raw industrial tank garage at CCA, Santa Fe. At the time, it was a vast open room—flooded with glorious light and filled with a palpable sense of possibility. Curated by Erin Elder, @erinelder505 I also worked closely with Angie Rizzo @angie.rizzo.nm and many other wonderful members of the CCA team, whose insight and generosity shaped the exhibition in meaningful ways. Included here are three of the India ink paintings on paper (10 x 6 feet), created outside on the desert land in New Mexico. You also see many of the 22 x 36 inch Impressions of Metates, created by holding Bhutan Mitsumata paper inside found metates with gathered stones, then pouring India ink or tea into the metates and allowing the works to dry in place. Metates—stone grinding slabs found on the land—have been essential tools for food preparation among Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. The tea used to create these paintings was given to me by a friend, adding a layer of relationship and exchange to the process. Also included is a series of seven large plaster cones cast in my studio, and one black metal cone coated with black and blue pastel. Cones remain one of my enduring obsessions. They begin with a single point—Euclid described a point as “that which has no part”—and expand outward toward infinity. Their geometry begins with nothing and opens into the infinite. @pieprojects.santafe @ccasantafe #sculpture #contemporaryart

"Charles Ross: Mansions of the Zodiac", Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM. Brilliant work by my husband, Charles Ross. The twelve "Mansions of the Zodiac" star map paintings (each 109 x 63.5 inches) were created in 1973/76, then reworked in 2012. They map the Precession of the Equinoxes. The large painting in the beginning of the video is titled "Point Source/Star Space: Weave of Ages" (106 x 225 inches). All of the star map paintings are made with Bakelite xeroxes of all 428 photographs from the Falkau Star Atlas, which depicts all of the stars seen from Earth to the twelfth magnitude on painted canvas. Music: Trey Donovan: @notionpollution @charlesrossstudio @harwoodmuseum #starart #contemporaryart

Two dancers from Movement Lab,@nadinelollino , performing at my brilliant husband's art opening, "Charles Ross; Mansions of the Zodiac", Harwood Museum, Taos, NM, @charlesrossstudio up through September 7th. Music: Trey Donovan @notionpollution @harwoodmuseum #newmexicoart #starart