Leigh-Anne O’Brien in her studio.
Gainesville native Leigh-Anne O’Brien has joined Gallery on the Square in downtown Gainesville. The sculptor and painter studied art at the University of Georgia and now teaches art at Lakeview Academy.
She studied art and art history at UGA, earning her bachelor of fine arts in 2007, focusing on stone carving and bronze casting.
Several years after graduation she moved to Vail where she met her British husband Neil and they returned to his home city of London. “Two of our three children were born there and by the time we came back to Gainesville, I was busy raising children and my art came in snippets of time.”
That was 2013, and she decided to pursue a career as an artist. A family trip to Ponte Vedra Beach in Northeast Florida lead to a new direction for her work.
“I found all these spectacular iridescent oyster shells on the beach and fell in love with them – the shapes, the colors and the nuances of pearl,” she said. “I posted one of my oyster watercolors online and a friend of my mother’s purchased it. I realized I’d found my main focus for 2-dimensional art.”
For the next several years, she concentrated on paintings of pearly, opalescent oyster shells in all sizes and groupings, from index card-sized to her largest, a 6- by 4-foot grouping. By 2013, she had begun painting full-time.
“It was my main focus for a long time, and it led to my interest in nature and plant subjects, such as landscapes, flamingoes and such,” she said. “Working with colors and shapes, I added free-flowing abstracts to my portfolio. Today, my work is a balance between abstracts, and nature subjects in watercolors and acrylics.”
In 2022, she began teaching art at Lakewood Academy both in middle school and high school.
“I’ve learned that I can commit shorter windows of time to complete a 2-dimensional work than a sculpture or a piece of pottery,” she said. “With sculpture I need at least 5-6 hours at a time. With watercolors and acrylics, I can paint and come back to it over several days or longer.
“But truth be told, my passion is still sculpture; 3-D works give me much more joy.”
In addition to being an artist at Gallery on the Square, she recently mounted an exhibition at Quinlan Visual Arts Center.
O’Brien’s website is lagobrien.com and includes photographs of her work and a list of her exhibitions.
Gallery on the Square is located at 118 Main Street downtown in Main Street Market.
For more information, visit www.gallerysq.com or call 770 314-1401.
Photo: courtesy of Leigh-Anne O’Brien
