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My Healing Garden is GreenPost an Event »

Romer Young Gallery

May 11 - June 10, 2012

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1240 22nd Street San Francisco, CA 94107
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My Healing Garden is Green
Romer Young Gallery is pleased to announce its second solo exhibition with artist Susan O'Malley, My Healing Garden is Green. There will be an opening reception for the artist on Friday, May 11, 6-9pm. O'Malley loves and collects inspirational sayings. She adores the crisp and authoritative language of optimism and the Zen-like messages of just being. She is drawn to the simple and recognizable tools of engagement - offering Pep Talks, installing roomfuls of inspirational posters, distributing flyers in neighborhood mailboxes, conducting doodle competitions at high schools - in order to offer entry points into the understood, sometimes humorous and sometimes challenging, interactions of everyday life. Ultimately she looks for moments in life, moments which offer glimpses into the possibility of understanding one another better. For her upcoming exhibition at the gallery, My Healing Garden is Green, O'Malley finds inspiration close to home. The artist writes: "With a strained hand my mom wrote My Healing Garden is Green after she was diagnosed with a rare and terminal neurological disease called Multiple Systems Atrophy. Her handwriting was just one part of the loss. Soon she could no longer do many of the activities she loved, like tend to her garden, work, or walk independently. Everything was happening very rapidly, so I asked her to write down phrases she always says to me. I think she wrote me things both of us needed to remember. The notes she wrote to me comprise this exhibition." The show will feature a series of handwritten phrases, a photograph, and an inspirational poster. 20% percent of all sales will go to Multiple Systems Atrophy (MSA) research. Most importantly, the artist would like to thank her mom, Guadalupe Reina O’Malley, not just for agreeing to make art with her, but for her endless inspiration on how to live: with love, grace and a sense of humor. O'Malley received her MFA from California College of the Arts' Social Practice Area. As both an artist and curator, she has participated in programs and exhibitions at Southern Exposure, Hardware Store Gallery, CCA, Mission 17, Curiosity Shoppe, The Lab, Headlands, SJICA and Romer Young Gallery.