Gerald O’Brien was like a father to Lucien Rizos, yet throughout their time together O’Brien never mentioned his lifelong creative project which is featured in Rizos’s exhibition, Everything. Join Rizos in conversation with Wellington artist and writer Gregory O’Brien (no relation to Gerald, incidentally) as they discuss and try to make sense of O’Brien’s life and the fantasy world he kept secret.

Gregory O'Brien is a Wellington poet, essayist and painter who curated exhibitions at City Gallery Wellington between 1997 and 2009. While there, he worked with Lucien Rizos on his 2005 exhibition Where I find myself. Gregory O'Brien's monograph on painter Don Binney is forthcoming from Auckland University Press in 2023.

This is the first in our lunchtime talk series Bridging Worlds running alongside Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery’s current exhibitions. These talks explore private obsessions in real world contexts and the ways imaginative personas enable slippage between identity categories.