O’Malley, Shepherd at Locco Ritoro

The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research

Somervillian Mary O’Malley’s exhibit of recent drawings at Locco Ritoro gallery is called “ultra-beauty” and damn if the show doesn’t live up to its name. With silver and gold ink on velvety black paper, she creates fantasias of birds and trees and flowers as well as abstract cascades of dots and dashes with flowing thick outlines that look something like mutating jellyfish. They’re dazzlingly ornate drawings, filled with obsessive patterning, that recall the swooning romantic dreams of turn of the century Art Nouveau. Wow.