Artist Profile: Michael O’Malley
Overview
Michael O’Malley is a Bushwick-based mixed media artist whose practice explores the cycles of transformation embedded in everyday urban life. A U.S. military veteran with a business background, O’Malley draws on personal history, transience, and resilience to construct layered visual narratives. His work channels the energy of lived experience—its tensions, ruptures, and revelations—into bold, textured compositions.
Working with salvaged signage, spray paint, acrylics, and markers, O’Malley’s art reclaims discarded surfaces and imbues them with new life. His pieces often juxtapose street iconography with expressive forms, tracing a path between control and chaos, vulnerability and force. Deeply rooted in his Brooklyn community, O’Malley’s work serves as a visual diary of resistance, memory, and movement.
Featured Artwork
Bushwick Gallery
Artwork Title: Down Broadway
Year of Creation: 2025
Medium: Mixed media on salvaged municipal signage
Dimensions: 49 in x 49 in
Location: Brooklyn, NY, USA
Description:
Down Broadway transforms a decommissioned street sign into a kinetic field of color and emotion. Centered on a floating blue figure surrounded by rhythmic lines and neon overlays, the piece captures the pulse of Bushwick—its beauty, friction, and flux. The original message, Broadway Closed to Traffic, becomes a metaphor for navigating identity and reinvention in a shifting urban landscape.