Bay Area Figurative Abstractions
Biography
EDUCATION/AWARDS
M.A., Painting and Drawing, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA 1987 - 89
Eugene Escalier Foreign Study Scholarship, German/Austrian Expressionism 1985
Gonzaga University-in-Florence, Jr.-Year Abroad Program, Florence, Italy 1982-83
B.A. Painting, cum laude, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Ca 1980 - 84
First Place Award, Art Space 712 San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Painting Exhibition & Competition 2009
2012 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Emotion in Motion, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT (solo upcoming in December)
Emotion in Motion, Leeds Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA (solo)
Emotion in Motion, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA (solo)
Emotion in Motion, Alex Bult Gallery, Sacramento, CA (solo)
Emotion in Motion, Gallery North, Carmel, CA (solo)
Emotion in Motion, Leeds Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA (solo)
Featured Artist, Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Baring the Soul: A Figurative Exploration, Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Annual Group Show, Craigheead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
artMRKT Contemporary & Modern Art Fair, San Francisco, CA, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT
SF Fine Art Fair, San Francisco, CA, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
ArtPadSF Art Fair, San Francisco, CA, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
New York Affordable Art Fair, Julie Nester Gallery, Park City, UT
New York Red Dot Fair, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
2011 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Emotion In Motion, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA (solo)
Beneath the Surface, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA (solo)
Letting Go, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX (solo)
Juicy Paint: New Paintings by Ursula O’Farrell and Peter K. Brooks, Gallery North, Carmel, CA
Red, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA
Annual Group Show, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
ART 100: LMU’s Alumni Artists, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA
SF Fine Art Fair, San Francisco, CA
ArtPadSF Art Fair, San Francisco, CA
Florence Biennale, Florence, Italy (invited)
2010 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Emotional Color, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA (solo)
New Images of Man and Woman, Alphonse Berber Gallery, Berkeley, CA (curator: Peter Selz)
Annual Group Show, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Connected by Color, Gallery North, Carmel, CA
Three Painters: Search for Self, Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA
Annual Group Show, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Los Angeles Art Show, Los Angeles, CA
Art San Diego Art Fair, San Diego, CA
Aqua10 Art Fair, Miami, FL
2009 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
New Work, Toomey Tourell Fine Art, San Francisco, CA, with exhibition essay by Susan
Landauer (solo)
The Constant is Change, B. Sakata Garo Gallery, Sacramento, CA (solo)
New Work, Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX (solo)
The Constant is Change, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA (solo)
Ursula O’Farrell Figurative Abstractions, Michelle Bello Fine Art, San Francisco, CA (solo)
“I’ll Bet You Can’t Paint a Portrait: The Genesis of Bay Area Figurative Art Now” Competition and
Exhibition, Art Space 712, San Francisco, CA (awarded first place and $12,000; juror:
Theophilus Brown)
Within the Dialogue, Claypool Freese Gallery, Carmel, CA
Artists Look at Human Rights, Santa Cruz Chapter of the United Nations Association, Santa
Cruz, CA
Vision, Vitality and Visibility, AAWAA 20th Anniversary Exhibition, SOMArts, San Francisco, CA
Reflections: The Human Figure, Santa Cruz County Bank, Santa Cruz, CA
CabrilloArts Summer Workshops Exhibition, Pajaro Valley Arts Council, Watsonville, CA
2008 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
New Images of Woman, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA, with exhibition essay by Peter Selz
(solo)
New Work, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Kirkland, WA (solo)
New Images of Woman, Stanford Art Spaces, Stanford University, Stanford, CA (solo)
Monotype Marathon 2008, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA
Annual Group Show, Patricia Rovzar Gallery, Seattle, WA
Visual Politics, Santa Cruz Art League, Santa Cruz, CA (juror: Peter Selz)
The Art of War, John Natsoulas Center for the Arts, Davis, CA
Members Showcase, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, CA
Red Dot New York Art Fair, New York, NY
2007 SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Pursuit of Beauty, Art Museum of Los Gatos, Los Gatos, CA (solo)
Peripheral Visions, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA (solo)
New Approaches to the Figure, Michaelangelo Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA (solo)
New Works, Two-Person Show, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
The National Figurative Show, Juried Show, Santa Cruz Art League, Santa Cruz, CA
Group Exhibition, Lisa Coscino Gallery, Pacific Grove, CA
Layerings, NIDO Gallery, Moss Landing, CA
Exemplary Contemporary, Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, Cowell College, University of
California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA
Down by the Sea, Santa Cruz County Bank, Santa Cruz, CA
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA
Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
2011
Karlstrom, Paul J., Peter Selz: Sketches of a Life in Art, University of California Press
Harp, Grady, Intimate Conversations between Artist and Canvas: The Paintings of Ursula
O’Farrell, Poets and Artists Magazine, August
Camplin, Todd, Ursula O’Farrell at Craighead Green Gallery through July 2, Modern Dallas, June
Blair, Elizabeth, Experience Organic Visions, Dallas Observer, June 9
Granberry, Michael, Art Notes: Say goodbye to three artist shows atCraighead-Green, The Dallas
Morning News, June 24
Selz, Peter, In the Dance of Life, Catalogue Interview with Ursula O’Farrell regarding the exhibit
Emotion in Motion, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
Van Proyen, Introduction to the Interview, Catalogue Essay regarding the exhibit Emotion in
Motion, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
Davidson, Maureen, The Spaces Between, Catalogue Essay regarding the exhibit Emotion in
Motion, Bryant Street Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
Wood, Sara, What’s up at the galleries this month?, The Bay Area Reporter, March
ARTslant San Francisco, Ursula O’Farrell: Beneath the Surface at Toomey Tourell, March
Cheng, DeWitt, San Francisco Art Galleries Openings, ArtBusiness.com, March 3
Segurson, Catherine, Ursula O’Farrell: Painting the Dance of Life, Video
2010
O’Farrell, Road to Joy: Expressionistic Painting, Lecture at the Art Museum of Los Gatos, Los
Gatos, CA, August 12
Davidson, Beyond Figurative Abstraction, Santa Cruz Weekly, Santa Cruz, CA, Dec. 8 - 15, 2010
O’Connor, Celeste, Alphonse Berber Gallery Exhibits ‘Slow Art’, The Berkeley Daily Planet,
January 14 - 20
Davidson, Maureen, Made in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Weekly, Santa Cruz, CA,
August 25 – September 1, pg 25
Crawford Watson, Linda, Connected by Color, Monterey Herald, June 18
Studio Visit Volume 7, The Open Studios Press, Boston, MA (juried publication)
Fox Television, Lone Star, Season 1, Episode 104
2009
Landauer, Susan, Phoenix Rising: The Remarkable Story of Ursula O’Farrell, Oakland, CA,
January
Modenessi, Jennifer, Figuratively Speaking at Berber Gallery, Bay Area News Group (San Jose
Mercury News, Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times), December
Selz, Peter, Catalogue Introduction regarding the exhibit New Images of Man and Woman,
Berkeley, CA, December
Davidson, Maureen, Ursula O’Farrell at Toomey Tourell Fine Art, Artweek Magazine, June
Torres, Anthony, Faith in Affirmation: The Work of Ursula O'Farrell, November
Marszalek, Norbert, Interview with Ursula O’Farrell, Neoteric Art, April 30
Cheng, DeWitt, Back to the Future – Berkeley Art Historian Peter Selz reexamines the human
condition, East Bay Express
Art Space 712, San Francisco, Press Release Announcing Artist Awards Totaling $20,000,
September 28
O’Farrell, Ursula, Catalogue for Solo Shows in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Sacramento, CA,
and Seattle, WA
Cheng, DeWitt, New Images of Man and Woman, Art Business.com, December 4
Studio Visit Volume 5, The Open Studios Press, Boston, MA (juried publication)
diCambio.net Bay Area, Ursula O’Farrell, figurative abstractions, Video
Cheng, DeWitt, Art Space 712 Gallery: A Holiday Celebration – Form and Color,
ArtBusiness.com, December 11
2008
Selz, Peter, Ursula O’Farrell’s Figurative Abstractions, Berkeley, CA
Davidson, Maureen, Art with Homework, Metro Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, Nov. 5 – 12, P. 35
2007
Moreland, Pamela, Visual Arts: New Figurative Abstractions by Ursula O’Farrell, San Jose
Mercury News, San Jose, CA, September 23
Lucchesi Hamilton, Marianne, Real Beauty: Ursula O’Farrell honors the female form with her eye
for the abstract, inaugural cover story, Los Gatos Weekender, Media News Corp., September 14
O’Farrell, Ursula, Pursuit of Beauty, Los Gatos Museum of Art, Los Gatos, CA
Kasik, Kevin, Pursuing Beauty and Building a Bridge Along the Way, The Palette, Los Gatos Art
Association, September 2
Dallas, Alastair, New Shows at the Art Museum of Los Gatos, Los Gatos Observer, August 2
Major, Mandy, Opinion: Welcome to the Weekender, Los Gatos Weekender, Media News Corp.,
September 14
Essay by noted historian and curator Dr. Peter Selz (Berkeley) 2008
Ursula O'Farrell: Figurative Abstractions
Back in the 1950s a group of painters in the San Francisco Bay Area established what came to be known as Bay Area Figurative Painting. Originally David Park, Elmer Bischoff and Richard Diebenkorn, painters who had all done abstract pictures, decided to embark on figuration which was indebted to abstract gesture painting, but looked again the world of appearances for their subjects. They even painted from the life model which simply was not done by the Abstract Expressionists. A second generation, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Bruce McGaw and others made this new approach to painting (or sculpting) the human figure, into their own and endowed it with a new spirit. Ursula O’Farrell can be said to represent a third generation which includes Christopher Brown and Roger Hermann. She has made this tradition as the source of her own work. It is important that she looked beyond her immediate environment. She spent a seminal year in Florence and another in Germany and she took a long look at Matisse’s paintings of women and learned how to fuse figuration with abstraction.
O’Farrell has focused her painting almost entirely on the depiction of women, reflecting no doubt a concern about her own identity. These canvases are done by an artist who has absorbed the lessons of Action Painting and are done with a vigorous brush, probably also with a palette knife and a trowel with lush paint slathered on to the support. Some may seem unrestrained at first look, but they follow their own order – as a 17th Century Chinese landscape painter once said: “The brush is for saving the world from chaos.” Her women, lost in thought, seated, lying, waiting, praying, dancing are all self-absorbed. Above all, they are her reasons for painting.
Looking Back (2008) pictures a woman looking into space. The painting makes us think of Hans Hofmann with the paint slashed on with loaded brush, creating agitated vibrating surfaces from which the figure seems to emerge. Mood Swing (2007) depicts a girl stretched on a beach chair. The red patches on her head and body and the light and dark blue sky can be seen as a dialogue between red and blue. In Vista Del Mar (2008) the artist has used the same color scheme, but the painting is much more abstract – it is indeed “Figurative Abstraction”. In the final analysis, as in much figurative painting, the viewer sees these paintings not just as a conversation between colors, but as a dialogue between painter and model.
Vista del Mar, oil on canvas, 48" x 48," 2008
Excerpt from Peter Selz Catalogue Introduction to the December 2009 – January 2010 Exhibtion 
Mood Swing, oil on panel, 18 x 24, 2007 Private Collection
“New Images of Man and Woman” at Alphonse Berber Gallery, Berkeley, CA (which Dr. Selz co-curated 50 years after the exhibition “New Images of Man” while at the Museum of Modern Art in New York).
Ursula O’Farrell’s paintings (courtesy of Toomey-Tourell Fine Art) are in the tradition of Bay Area gestural figure painting. With an intense bravura brush she applies juicy paint, reminiscent of some of the pictures by Elmer Bischoff and David Park. Yet her agitated vibrating surfaces are more abstract than those of her predecessors. Women are the theme of her work, sometimes painted in red and integrated in a complementary green background. They remind us of Oliveira’s paintings or those of the British painter Frank Auerbach. O’Farrell’s pictures represent a conversation between artist and canvas which she describes as “flowering of the dance with the paint, using intuition to guide me. Leaving myself at the door and trying to feel my way through the painting. I spin and turn the canvas to see what it wants to become.”
"Phoenix Rising: The Remarkable Story of Ursula O’Farrell"
Dr. Susan Landauer (2009, Oakland, California) -- Brief excerpts
"Where does the execution of a picture start, where does it end? At the moment when intense feelings are fused at the depths of one’s being, when they erupt, and [the whole] thought flows forth like lava from a volcano. . . . Cold and rational calculations have nothing to do with this eruption, for who knows when, in the depths of his being, the work was begun, perhaps unconsciously? Paul Gauguin, 1898
"...It is understandable that Selz and other commentators initially placed O’Farrell in the Bay Area Figurative school considering that she worked exclusively from the figure and used her models as scaffolds for extravagant painterly escapades. As she told an interviewer in 2007, “I love thick, juicy paint. It doesn’t have to be controlled; it can be globbed on or even smeared on. And that’s good; that’s what paint does.” Like Bischoff, Diebenkorn, and Park, she draws heavily from the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism, which she has admired since graduate school. Indeed, when Clement Greenberg, the New York critic who helped put the movement on the map, defined its essential features, he came strikingly close to describing O’Farrell’s work:
"If the label ‘Abstract Expressionism’ means anything, it means painterliness: loose, rapid handling or the look of it; masses that blotted and fused instead of shapes that stayed distinct; large and conspicuous rhythms; broken color; uneven saturations or densities of paint, exhibited brush, knife or finger marks . . ."
That kind of spontaneous bravura brushwork continues to characterize Ursula’s painting, and her first figurative forays specifically show the influence of the Bay Area Figurative triumvirate. One of her most ambitious paintings, the diptych Flying Into It (2007), bears the unmistakable imprint of Bischoff with its buttery, melting brushwork and dreamy atmosphere. The multi-figure canvas can be compared to paintings such as Bischoff’s large Three Bathers, an homage to Cézanne, with much of the same romantic unio mystica that both artists pursued, in which the figures revel in a kind of sensory osmosis with nature. By contrast, the heroic postures found in O’Farrell’s more clearly defined Bather (2007) and Standing Figure (Confident) (2007) demonstrate the more sculptural approach of David Park, whose figures, unlike Bischoff’s, are boldly defined by shadow and light, often filling up the canvas to confront the viewer head on.
Yet as early as 2007, O’Farrell was already straying from the formulae of her predecessors. Paintings such as Lost in Thought (c. 2007), though far more benign than de Kooning’s Women series, evoke the Dutch-born New York Abstract Expressionist’s figural distortion and dematerialization of form, the magical effect his art dealer Allan Stone memorably called “liquified cubism.” In other cases, notably O’Farrell’s Seated Figure (Melinda) (2007), there are portents of contemporary British painter Frank Auerbach, whose figure paintings, always done directly from the model, nonetheless became so abstract that they are barely recognizable as representations of anything beyond heavily impastoed swipes and slabs of paint.
In 2008, O’Farrell made a decisive move toward greater abstraction in keeping with her goal of delving deeper into her own psyche, to create not only a “condensation of sensations,” to use Bischoff’s phrase, but to tap the inner depths of her personal storehouse of emotions and subconscious memory bank. The leap began with an intentional decision in October 2007 to dispense with the figure and paint entirely from imagination, working rapidly without preliminary study. Whereas before, as Selz remarked, her paintings had represented a conversation between “artist and model,” now they became a dialogue between artist and canvas. Since then, as O’Farrell wrote,
"My working method is much more a flowering of the dance with the paint, using intuition to guide me. Leaving myself at the door and trying to feel my way through the painting. I spin and turn the canvas to see what it wants to become. Is it a figure—a grouping of figures? An abstract that is moving forward? My [intellect and] ego wants a sense of direction, and yet has no place in the studio . . . what comes out is raw and hopefully connects with my sense of what is true. . . . [The] work is about being human and sharing from an open ‘kimono’ position—where nothing is held back."
Faith in Affirmation: The Work of Ursula O'Farrell
Anthony Torres (San Francisco, 2009)
Ursula O’Farrell’s paintings have often been identified as contemporary heirs to a history associated with Bay Area Figurative Art and its concerns with conflating representational subject matter — still life, portraits, landscapes, and here, the female figure — and Abstract Expressionism’s formal concerns, which emphasized process, handling of paint, and addressing the essentials of medium.
However, while O’Farrell’s painting may foreground expressionistic representation of the human form in abstract painterly space, in contradistinction to Bay Area Figurative artists who focused on the world around them, her work qualitatively differs in its immersion in what might be best described as a realm of personal spirituality anchored in the materiality of painterly color and artistic expression.
Faith in the transformative power of creative self-determination is affirmed in her work, and this serves as a vehicle for evoking and fusing memories, thoughts, and emotions — past and present — which speaks to a condensed personal history and subjectivity that is constantly shifting, fluid, and ever evolving.
Her work should perhaps be characterized as representing psychic excavations — conscious and unconscious — that bring to the surface traces of life passages through creative processes that construct and reveal private spaces. These exploratory adventures are anchored in painterly articulation and an abundant application of color, here rendering fragmented figures and forms.
If the spectral images that emerge speak to personal associations and stories through formal strategies congealed in the work, they do so in a manner that is very open to multiple interpretations, with a language that resonates from art historically derived discourses associated with Bay Area Figurative art and its concern with the conflation of the figure with formal strategies inherited from abstraction.
Indeed, these issues and concerns are reflected in Ursula O’Farrell’s passionate treatment of surface textures and loose application of paint, which she uses to conjure generalized figures in nebulous pictorial spaces for very private and personal reasons, and presents as a vehicle to elicit a visual dialogue and visceral response in her viewers.
Real Beauty:
Ursula O’Farrell’s “Pursuit of Beauty” at Art Museum of Los Gatos
By Marianne Lucchesi Hamilton
September 14, 2007
Courtesy of “Los Gatos Weekender/MediaNews Corp.”
Seven years ago, accompanied by 300 cancer survivors, Ursula O’Farrell climbed Japan’s Mt. Fuji. Surrounded by so many women who had dared to face down extraordinary hardships, O’Farrell was inspired – and humbled by their courage. As she stood on the summit, she resolved to make some dramatic changes in her life.
When she returned home, she picked up the paintbrushes she had not touched for nearly two decades. In the ensuing years, O’Farrell has been feverishly producing the abstract figurative paintings that Durnell Gallery proprietress Linda Durnell calls “just perfect.” O’Farrell’s work is now on display in both Durnell’s gallery and the Art Museum of Los Gatos, where the 29 paintings in O’Farrell’s “Pursuit of Beauty: New Figure Abstractions” exhibit are sharing space with photographer Peter Digrazia’s work through October 13th.
While attending school, O’Farrell had intended to make her living as an artist. Before receiving a Bachelor’s degree in painting and drawing from Loyola Marymount University, and a Master’s in the same subjects from San Jose State, O’Farrell spent a year in Florence, soaking up the work of the Renaissance masters. Then, according to O’Farrell, “life happened.” Marriage and a blended family brought the responsibility of caring for six children (the youngest diagnosed with autism), and art took a backseat to housekeeping and homework.
Still, O’Farrell never completely lost touch with the art world. When the kids were older she served as director of Applied Materials’ non-profit arts foundation, and as director of development for the Arts Council of Silicon Valley. Then she stood on that mountaintop.
“It was a huge ‘a-ha’ moment,” O’Farrell recalls. “In their own way, those women who’d had to face death showed me that I couldn’t give joy to my kids if my cup was turned upside down. If it’s turned right side up, if it’s filled with your own joy, then you have something to share. I realized then that I had to make some critical life changes, and to focus on what I believe is a blessing I’ve been given: to be able to paint.”
For this new phase of her life, O’Farrell took her cue from Henri Matisse, the French figurative master she says has most influenced her work. “The most amazing thing was reading his quote, which says ‘creativity takes courage.’” With those three words resonating within her, O’Farrell eagerly put brush to paint. Like Matisse, she chose to focus on the female figure. “I work from the model as a point of inspiration,” she notes. “But I look at color, space, the flow of lines, the angles, and go from there.”
In a further nod to Matisse, O’Farrell chose to forego any effort in producing photo-representational art – much to the chagrin of her mother. “My mom always tried to copy the masters, and would tell me to do the same. But I never understood why anyone would want to copy someone else’s work. I completely rejected that idea pretty early on.”
Many of O’Farrell’s paintings display a soft-focus, languid touch, lovingly capturing the contours, shapes and shadows of the classic female form. But she accents her work with a bold, unexpected color palette; faces are often carved out of chaotic layers rendered in vivid hues. If O’Farrell has a “signature” style, it is this fearless use of her tools. “I love thick, juicy paint,” she admits. “There’s such sweetness in just letting paint be paint. It doesn’t have to be controlled; it can be globbed or even smeared on. And that’s good … that’s what paint does.”
O’Farrell depicts her subjects in poses that suggest comfort in their own skin. She typically works with a model for at least a year, forming a close bond of shared creative energy, and encourages them to strike poses that convey self-confidence. “A lot of my work is about female empowerment, because so often in our society women are made to feel that their bodies don’t measure up. The ‘pursuit of beauty’ isn’t about the pursuit of Botox,” she adds. “It’s something deeper, in the core of ourselves. I love to capture women who have the courage to stand strong and tall.”
Durnell says she’s been a fan of O’Farrell’s work since she first viewed one of O’Farrell’s canvases earlier this year. “I have over 50 artists whom I represent, and the only figurative work I’m going to be carrying is Ursula’s,” Durnell asserts. “There’s no reason to carry anyone else; Ursula does it perfectly.” Adds Anne Biesewig, director of the gallery, “I love the texture of her work and her color palette, and I happen to love figurative art. I took almost everything she brought in for us to see; it was like finding a kindred spirit.”
Devotees of figurative art can share in O’Farrell’s expertise during a special hands-on oil demonstration and lecture given by the artist on September 16th, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Art Museum of Los Gatos (each participant will be given a copy of her “Pursuit of Beauty” catalog). In addition, her work can be seen at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, as well as the Winfield Gallery in Carmel. Next spring, O’Farrell’s figures will be featured in an exhibit at the Stanford Art Spaces.
O’Farrell, who just celebrated her 45th birthday this week, is somewhat unnerved by the onslaught of attention her work is receiving. Currently the Los Gatos native puts in an average of six hours per day in her Aptos studio to keep up with the demand for her paintings, which are being snapped up by collectors nationwide. As she looks ahead to a future devoted to her art, she says she has but one goal: “When people see one of my paintings, I don’t want them to just look at its surface and think ‘oh, she captured that person’s likeness.’ I want them to go deeper, to the harmonies of the work; to its variations in form and composition and color. And if they walk away having felt something, then I’ve succeeded at my job.”
