Brian O'Malley has been practicing his art for the better part of 15 years. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting and drawing from the University of Rhode Island in 1995, and continued with his formal education at the Massachusetts College of Art, taking classes in film studies, in which he focused on the connections between Alfred Hitchcock and Edward Hopper. After traveling the country and spending extensive time in the Southwest, he headed to the University of Miami to pursue a Master of Fine arts degree in painting. The light and energy of the tropics had a profound influence, as Brian moved from crude abstract works influenced by DeKooning and Rauschenberg to symbolic figurative pieces influenced by German neo-expressionism and Latino Symbolists like Arnaldo Roche-Rabell and Ignacio Iturria. At this point Brian became more influenced by his own sculpture (which he was pursuing with great vigor) than by drawing. Paintings would come after he created works in wood and fiberglass. Brian received his Master of Fine arts degree in 1999 from the University of Miami. While in South Florida he showed his works in group shows at the Ambrosino Gallery, the Lowe Art Museum, The New Gallery, and Locust Projects.

In 2000 Brian moved back to Providence, Rhode Island, and obtained a studio in the Smith Loft building, where he hosted some open exhibitions with other artists in the building. At this time Brian was simplifying his work, boiling it down to line and minimal color and making it more conceptual. A month long residency in 2001 at the Vermont Studio Center brought about some new work that balanced color field painting and figurative animation. Many of the works from this residency were shown in a solo show at Gallery Z in 2001, titled a Paradise of Heroes. At this time Brian began teaching at the University of Rhode Island as an adjunct professor, where he has been ever since. He has shown extensively in the New England area in numerous group shows at the Boston Center for the Arts, University of Rhode Island, Rhode Island College, the Space at Alice, and Gallery Z. Brian had his second solo show at the Bromfield Gallery, Transitions and Undoings, in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2005. He was represented by the White Space Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut, from 2005 to 2007, and now is locally represented by Gallery Z in Providence. Brian maintains a home and studio just outside of Providence, in Greenville, Rhode Island, and he continues to pursue narrative style paintings, fusing landscape and figure.

List of Pieces:

1. The Roundabout

2. A Gathering

3. Swiftly and Silently

4. A Conversation Amongst the Field

5. The Stillness of a Mountain

6. The Periphery of Our Journey