12 – 25 November 2026
Opening event: Thurs 12 Nov, 6-8pm
From 2017 until 2022, Maggie O’Brien, known for her celebrated seascapes, made another body of work — one not seen until now. In her exhibition ‘[M]OTHER:’, the external landscape gives way to an internal one: visceral, symbolic, folkloric and deeply human. The work was made during the years in which Maggie was living with the knowledge that her son, Toby, had terminal cancer.
Beasts, birds, tussles, stitches, pain and grief move through these works. Crows and other strange creatures become carriers for what cannot easily be said. O’Brien’s visual language gives form to the unspeakable, touching something ancient, archetypal and recognisable.
Alongside the images sit Maggie’s poems, occupying the space between lived experience and making. Together they become a way of moving through grief: not resolving it but instead attempting to meet it, know it, befriend it.
Crucially, within Mother sits Other. This is at the heart of the work. The exhibition ‘[M]OTHER:’ speaks to the other experience of being female and maternal: the feelings that do not fit the idealised image of motherhood, the parts we are so often asked to contain or disguise. Love alongside anger. Pride alongside pain. Hope alongside despair.
The exhibition was due to open in November 2021, but Toby’s condition worsened and it was cancelled. Now, finally, the work enters the world.
‘We feel deeply privileged to present this intimate body of work that is both an act of remembrance and love, and also a testament to Maggie’s courage to love, to rage, to grieve, to make, and to allow herself to be seen.’ Faye Dobinson and Lynne Dyer, Curators
The exhibition runs at Tremenheere Gallery until 25 November 2026 and is open Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-4pm. There is a book featuring Maggies’s poems and paintings, available at the exhibition.
Events – All FREE to attend, with no need to book.
12 November: Opening event/PV: 6-8pm
14 November: Poetry reading by Maggie to accompany the exhibition: 2-4pm.
19 November: Conversation between Maggie, Faye and Lynne exploring the mythologies of motherhood and the themes within the exhibition: 6-8pm
