Jack O’Brien

Jack O’Brien’s work explores the interplay of material, personal experience, and cultural critique. His sculptures, often made from found and repurposed objects combined with consumer materials like shrink wrap, epoxy, and fabric, evoke a sense of precarity and tension, reflecting both physical and social fragility. By forcing rigid materials into uneasy confrontations and binding them in unexpected ways, O’Brien mirrors the complexities of human relationships and identity. His abstraction destabilizes fixed forms, creating works charged with nervous energy, as if on the verge of collapse. This precariousness becomes a metaphor for broader dynamics of identity, particularly within queer cultural histories, while his materials act as ‘eloquent texts’ that engage political and personal narratives.

The following comprehensive publication has just been released in 2026: Jack O’Brien: Cue the Cue, Alexander Wilmschen, Kestner Gesellschaft (ed.), Berlin: Bierke Verlag, 144 pp., Ger./Eng. With texts by Juliette Desorgues, Kristian Vistrup Madsen, Alexander Wilmschen, and a conversation between Jack O’Brien and Jeppe Ugelvig.