In Borrowed Light — Michael James O’Brien

Love & Deth (Pink Toon) , 2019

In Borrowed Light is my version of Cartier-Bresson’s “decisive moment”: you plan, you’re smart, you are in luck if you catch it & then its over & before you know it you are like Orpheus leading Eurydice or Antinous out of the underworld, in borrowed light, trying not to look back. -MJO 2021

“Now eyes are closer to the bone & luminous; Lives are closer to the bone & luminous I hear voices saying, ‘Look for me’ - but where?” - MJO, Times Square c.2021

Michael, Roses, 2020

“…as vivid as

night blooming flowers

waiting for the night to end.”

-MJO, Spiritus Pizza, c.2021mjo

Hope (Jay in a black dress, after J.S. Sargent), 2019.

“Hope flaps a tinsel wing… 3 am & all of love is just like this: like the magic robe Medea gave to Jason’s young wife- so beautiful at first you try it on. It fits. It clings- then turns to flame.”

-MJO, Gold Colored Dudes c.2021

Damien, Studio, Place des Vosges, Paris 2006

“And I worship. I have seen what I have seen. When they brought the boy, I said: ‘He has a god in him, Though I do not know which god.’” -Ezra Pound, Canto II

Zette, Swimming to a Distant Shore, n.d.

“The swimmer’s arms turned to branches, Who will say in what year, fleeing what band of tritons, The smooth brows, seen, and half seen, now ivory stillness.”

-Ezra Pound, Canto II.

Oracle (Andre Shoals), Studio, NYC, n.d.

“You are your own fate- you have woven your own spell.” -Jean Genet, Our Lady of the Flowers, 1963

Torso,( Luccino), Studio, Place des Vosges, Paris, 2006

Trust; Hadrian in the Underworld (Titus, whitened, returning alone) Studio, 2019

The Doppler Effect (Pieter du Toit), Atlanta, 2017

The Doppler effect is observed whenever the source of energy, or light-waves, moves, increasing in intensity as the source moves closer to the observer.

Mark in bed, Martha’s Vineyard, 1986

“Years later- on sunny London Bridge, convoluted hopes hopelessly adrift, we will wave a cowardly goodbye.”

-MJO, The Morning He Left c.2021mjo