Kelly O’Brien (1985) is a queer artist living and working in the United Kingdom. Her background profoundly shapes her artistic practice: coming from an Irish immigrant, working-class family, O’Brien weaves together biographical elements and social inquiry in her work. Her research is grounded in a documentary approach, aimed at making visible what often remains unseen. She gives voice to marginalized figures—people society tends to overlook—thus overturning hierarchies and transforming the image into a tool for exposure and empowerment.
Her work focuses on themes of labour, sacrifice, and social inequality, all deeply rooted in her family history. In particular, O’Brien examines the condition of working women and the roles they occupy both in the domestic sphere and in the workplace. From this perspective emerges a social and political analysis of contemporary reality, built upon personal and collective memory.
In Scrubber, a female figure appears with her back to the camera, which captures her distinctive hairstyle: her hair, rolled around makeshift curlers, is held in place by brightly coloured kitchen sponges. The use of objects associated with domestic cleaning immediately evokes the social condition of the housewife, a role to which women were relegated for centuries. White strands visible among her hair accentuate a sense of neglect, as if self-care had been sacrificed to the demands of the household. Through this image, O’Brien enacts a gesture of reclamation: the woman becomes the focus of the gaze once again, the protagonist of a narrative that challenges stereotypes and restores dignity to her experience.

The work is presented as part of the exhibition No Rest for the Wicked, held at Spazio Carbonesi in Bologna on the occasion of Foto/Industria, the biennial promoted by Fondazione MAST, whose theme is Home. The exhibition recounts the personal history of the artist and her family, focusing particularly on the working lives of several generations of women—her mother and grandmother—who came from a working-class background and emigrated from Ireland to the United Kingdom. The narrative moves between home and work, two spaces that are only seemingly opposed: the former, traditionally perceived as a refuge, reveals itself as a place where gender and class inequalities persist.

© Kelly O’Brien, Scrubber, 2025
Digital Photography on d-bond
100 x70 cm
Series: No Rest For The Wicked

15/11/25