Randi O’Brien
About the Artist
A descendant of early Hispano settlers and Indigenous American ancestry (Apache) on her maternal side, paired with a paternal heritage of 18th century English settlers, O’Brien celebrates the different expressions of what it means to perpetually move between cultures and her multiracial identity.
O’Brien is a ceramic artist, historian, writer, and educator from the Rocky Mountains. She received both an MFA in ceramics and a MA in art history from the University of Montana. O’Brien is currently an Associate Professor of Ceramics at Montana State University, Billings, and co-editor of Studio Potter.
O’Brien exhibits across the United States and globally; selected locations include: Kilkenny, Ireland; Valparaiso, Chile; Alberta, Canada; and New York, among other states in the U.S. O’Brien has curated numerous exhibitions and has presented her research on ceramics for the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame, the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts conference, and Ceramics Ireland’s International Ceramic Festival. Her research has been published in Ceramics Monthly, Ceramics Art and Perception: Technical, Ceramics Ireland, and Studio Potter.
Artist Statement
I am a sculptor, potter, and video artists who chose clay and ceramics as my medium. While I navigate multiple modes of ceramic production, the narrative intention of a fable is the moral fiber within all of my work. I cherish the cycles of yearning and atonement which reveal a character’s personal discovery. It is within this cycle that an audience can see a character’s ability to navigate their internal struggles.
In my sculptural work I target and capture frozen moment narratives. My aim is to give the viewer a variety of sources (materials, forms, and context) to derive an endless chain of substitutions for content. There is neither one outcome nor conclusion to my character’s circumstance. Instead the symbols are ambiguous enough for individual viewers to project their interpretations freely. The sculptural characters do not act out the full story line of a fable. Rather, they are frozen in reflection, searching for the moral of their story.