Peregrine O'Gormley

Through my father’s stories and his example he engendered in me a deep reverence for the natural world; a joy in witnessing it, tempered by serious concern for its well-being. I now tell stories as well, though with few words, the images of birds, skinks, rabbits and slugs, my vocabulary.

I see living things as highly refined. Honed over eons, the experience and genetics of thousands of generations bringing them into sharp focus. Each organism’s life needs, met or achievable with its body alone. The result is a tangible and exquisite beauty.

My reverence for and use of living forms is designed to connect with aspects of ourselves. They relate to those elements of human nature and experience which we still share with the natural world; those questions and experiences we hold in common, among them: love, raising of young, excitement, exuberance, fondness, struggle, death, longing…the unknown.

My father, taught me to see, to be present, to look closely at the world around us. We’d peer carefully at a pinhead-size flying insect, and he’d say, “A flying Miracle!” “This miniscule thing, eats, poops, breaths, sees, hears, has legs -6, did you count them? Did you catch the iridescence in its wings -does it have two pairs or one? AND this tiny thing, CAN FLY! Unbelievable!” Walking through the woods on our land in New Mexico, he would point out this species and that, plants, animals, fungi, lichens, moss, 540 million year old brachiopod fossils and so on. It never stopped. A friend once said, “It’s like taking a walk with God, and him saying, “Here, let me show you how this works.”” My father would never have made such an analogy, but the depth and range of his knowledge was astonishing, most compelling however, was his enthusiasm, love, and appreciation for all things living.
I say these things here not as a eulogy to my father, though I miss him terribly, but to describe how it is that the living world informs everything that I create. My father passed on to me a deep reverence for the natural world, and a joy in being witness to its glory tempered by serious concern for its well-being.

PEREGRINE O’GORMLEY | CV
P.O. Box 513,
La Conner, WA 98257
360.770.8511
www.peregrineogormley.com

EDUCATION 2001 BA Biology, The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
SOLO 2012 Fire, Smith & Vallee Gallery, Edison, WA
2009 Peregrine O’Gormley, Gallery Cygnus, La Conner, WA
TWO 2016 Peregrine O’Gormley and Jean Behnke, Smith & Vallee Gallery, Edison, WA
2015 Inspired by Nature: Philip McCracken & Peregrine O’Gormley, Burton Gallery, Anacortes, WA
2014 Peregrine O’Gormley and Lindsay Kohles, Smith & Vallee Gallery, Edison, WA
2013 New Work, Todd Horton and Peregrine O’Gormley, Gallery Cygnus, La Conner, WA
2010 David Ridgeway and Peregrine O’Gormley, Lucia Douglas Gallery, Bellingham, WA
GROUP 2016 Revering Nature, Vashon Center for the Arts in partnership w/ Baimbridge Island Museum of Art,
Guest Curator, Greg Robinson, Vashon Island, WA
2015 Edwoud De Groot, Ron Kingswood, Peregrine O’Gormley, Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
2015 Neo-Natralist, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conne...