My drawings, paintings, and collages investigate the natural world and are often inspired by found objects. Much of the work is autobiographical. At times, its subject matter is recognizable; at others it leans toward the abstract. Each painting evolves from black-and-white studies and subsequent color studies that include collage elements.

The work is formal and head-on frontal. The space is shallow, and the balance between form and color is a critical calibrating factor. I have an enduring interest in patterns, edges, the intersection of forms with space, and the way an image sits on a stretched canvas, becoming one with it.

— Francis O’Shea

And the constellated forms of Francis O’Shea’s paintings exist on a porous imaginary boundary between flowers and invertebrate sea life. The interiority of the water world reminds us that the Symbolists conceived of abstraction as presenting a “landscape” of interior feeling, as opposed to serving as a pedestal for utopian geometries.

— Stephen Westfall, Luminosity and Risk, catalog essay