BIO
Morgan O'Hara (b. Los Angeles 1941) was raised in an international community in post-war Japan. Her practice researches vital movement of living beings through drawing.
She earned a Master's Degree in Art from California State University at Los Angeles, had her first solo exhibition in the Musée Cantonal des Beaux Arts in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1978.
In 1989 she began doing performative drawing in international performance art festivals at the invitation of Boris Nieslony, did her first site specific wall drawings at De Fabriek in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and began the practice of aikido, a Japanese martial art.
In 1997 O'Hara's work was honored with a solo show in the newly opened Drawing Room at the Drawing Center in New York.
O'Hara maintained her studio in Europe for 25 years: Paris, Berlin and 21 years in Italy. Now lives and works in Venice and New York. Exhibits internationally.
"To know what the world is in its innermost cohesion."
Goethe
LIVE TRANSMISSION performative drawings have been done on five continents.
Her work is in the permanent collections of many institutions, including: The British Museum, London; Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Germany; Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, Arkansas; Národní Galerie Prague; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California; Hood Museum of Art - Dartmouth College, New Hampshire; Janáček Museum, Brno, Czech Republic; Macau Art Museum, Macau, China; Metropolitan Miuseum of Art, New York; Moravská Galerie, Brno, Czech Republic; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Olomouc Museum of Art, Czech Republic; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Wannieck Gallery, Brno, Czech Republic; Weatherspoon Gallery, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Her permanent site specific wall drawings can be found in the Macau Art Museum, Macau, China; The Canadian Academy Kobe, Japan; and the Vrije Universiteit OZW Building, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
O'Hara teaches master classes in drawing and the psychology of creativity in art academies in the US, Europe and Asia.
She has been awarded numerous international residencies including MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire; Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice, Italy; Guapamacataro in Michoacán, Mexico; New Space Arts Foundation in Hue, Vietnam; Galerie Školska Prague, Čimelice Castle, Czech Republic, et al.
She is recipient of grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, including the Lee Krasner Award for Lifetime Achievement, the Gottleib Foundation, Leon Levy and Putnam Foundations.
The multilingual ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE TRANSMISSION numbers, in 2021, Volumes 1- 7 and have been published in Italy, New York, Macau and Chile, always in conjunction with solo exhibitions.