Anne Russinof photo blogs a visit to the studio of painter Fran O'Neill.

In her artist statement O'Neill writes: "I am intrigued by how space can be open, compressed, complex, grand and intimate, and sometimes all within the same image. I look for moments in life that have a special or unexpected quality about them. Perhaps it is the way that light hits a surface, or the juxtaposition of shapes, textures or a tiny happening, a memory or a fragment of a dream or reality. There are times when I glimpse something, and I have no idea what I am looking at, or when the strangeness of real-life seems dreamlike or indescribable for a split second, than brutally materializes into focus. Sometimes its that fleeting moment that catches my eye and plays in my imagination. I don't necessarily seek to re-create what I have seen, but more the experience of how it felt and how I perceived it. I entwine those experiences with others and as I begin to paint, and with that, the direct application of paint in the moment can add its own dynamic to the image making."