Kean O’Brien

I use ___ pronouns

October 1, 2022 – January 2023

Gold vinyl

15-feet long

In Finite Space

January 2023 – December 1, 2023

Two framed cyanotypes, each 36 x 57 inches

One framed gold leaf text on paper, 34 x 44 inches

Aquatic and Recreation Center, third floor, 8750 El Tovar Place

Click here for additional images

I use ­___ pronouns began in 2011 when Councilmember John D’Amico commissioned the artist to paint a mural on his office wall in City Hall that included the phrase “I use male pronouns.” At the time, pronouns were not a part of the mainstream conversation that they are now. Today the installation at the Aquatic and Recreation Center beckons the viewer to understand their relationship with their own pronouns, which is an inclusive act to the transgender and non-binary community. The artwork material is gold vinyl lettering.

In Finite Space includes two cyanotypes and a gold leafed, hand-drawn text work on paper. The artwork explores the liminal and expansive sky that holds infinite space for the liberation of marginalized bodies. O’Brien considers both the body as landscape and the landscape as a human body. In a moment when gender is in revolution, race politics are being interrogated and resisted, where bodies are seen as sites of controversy, and bodies are trying to cross borders all over the globe, we can see that our own bodies are also deeply linked to the environments and the people that hold them.

Artist Kean O’Brien (he/they) is a transgender, chronically ill, disabled, artist, educator and academic living between Chicago and Los Angeles. As a multimedia artist working interdisciplinarity between photography, painting, found images, installation, and writing, he focuses on the nuance of gendered construction, whiteness, the body as landscape for survival, death, grief, and trauma. His academic writing explores the current landscape of higher education from an abolitionist, decolonial lens. He has a longstanding commitment to radical pedagogy, community building and grassroots organizing. He holds an MFA from California Institute for the Arts, a BFA from the School of the Art Institute Chicago and is currently a doctoral candidate at Fielding Graduate University for Education Leadership in social change.

For questions, contact Rebecca Ehemann, Arts Manager at (323) 848-6846 or rehemann@weho.org. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, please call, TTY: (323) 848-6496. To learn more information about the City of West Hollywood and its arts programs visit www.weho.org/arts.