Pat O’Connor: Reclaimed | Closing Reception and Talk

Pat O’Connor, “Winter Sun and Shadow,” 2026, 48” x 36” x 2”, salvaged cardboard, acrylic paint, birch board
Pat O’Connor’s work has long explored the intersection of object, time, and narrative. Beginning with paper pulp castings over structures at a former World War II naval base, O’Connor developed a sustained interest in materials marked by history. In her exhibit, Reclaimed, she is drawn to surfaces shaped by wear, weather, and works with cardboard salvaged from the streets, recycling bins, and packaging. Through folding, layering, stitching, printing, and painting, she transforms these fragments and other seemingly incongruent materials into richly layered assemblages. Guided by shifts in patina and form, O’Connor builds surfaces dense with histories, lush harmonies, and active surfaces. Cardboard, humble and impermanent, originates from trees. O’Connor links the material back to the natural world. In some works, she introduces imagery of branches and tree forms, creating both calm and unsettling dialogues between the material’s fragile present and its living origin. In a culture shaped by disposability, O’Connor elevates overlooked materials, inviting viewers to sense the stories embedded in ordinary things as well as imagine ways the industrial and natural worlds might endure together.
Bio:
Pat O’Connor is an artist whose practice spans drawing, painting, assemblage, and site-responsive sculpture. Her work has been exhibited widely, most recently at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, Transmission Gallery in Oakland, the Sasse Museum of Art in Pomona, California, and O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in Mill Valley. Her pieces are held in public and private collections, including a public commission at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center. Pat received her BA in Painting and Drawing from UC Davis and pursued graduate study in textile arts at San Francisco State University. Honors include a San Francisco Foundation Grant, the Robert Rauschenberg-hosted Power of Art Award from the Lab School of Washington, D.C., and the Arts Educator of the Year Award from the San Francisco Unified School District. O’Connor has taught widely at notable institutions, including San Francisco State University, UC Berkeley Extension, and the de Young Museum.
Gallery Hours: Friday and Saturday, 12 – 5 pm (and by appointment)
Artists’ Opening Reception: Saturday, June 27, 3 – 5 pm
Oakland Art Murmur / First Friday: Friday, July 3, 5 – 9 pm