Plyos
Tessa Greene O'Brien, Tollef Runquist, and Jamie Gray Williams
April 30 – May 28, 2022
In 2010, visual artists Will Sears and Tessa O’Brien found themselves doing set design for a Maine music festival. For Tessa, the job came 8 years into the 12 she spent traveling the country doing just such work. Will, however, was new to the art production world and not a Mainer. He just happened to be in state for an art residency when a mutual friend (the sculptor John Bisbee) recommended him for the gig. By the time Will and Tessa had transitioned from friends who met while working to a couple with a house in Portland’s East End, Tessa had tired of the on-the-road lifestyle. She wanted to be engaged with her own community. Although Will took her place on the road for a while, he had the same desire. The two were never going to give up their respective studio practices, but they found a way to settle down by creating their own opportunities, adopting a “collage as lifestyle” approach to earning a living.
Tessa Greene O’Brien was born in mid-coast Maine in 1982, and returned to Maine in 2004, after spending time in Vermont, Oregon, and upstate New York. She graduated from Skidmore College with a B.S. in Fine Art, and received her MFA from Maine College of Art. O'Brien co-founded the Portland Mural Initiative with partner Will Sears in 2015, which curated, funded, and oversaw the execution of 7 murals around southern Maine between 2015 and 2017.
O’Brien has had solo exhibitions at Elizabeth Moss Galleries, Falmouth, Maine and Friedman Gallery at Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Grant Wahlquist Gallery, Portland, Maine, Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, Maine, and Able Baker Contemporary, Portland, Maine, among others. She has been an artist in residence at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Monson Arts Residency, Vermont Studio Center, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and Pace House Residency.
O’Brien lives and works in South Portland, Maine.
