SK OBrien is an artist, designer and educator. She recently joined the University of Kentucky as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Product Design in its College of Design. Her professional design experience includes working as Lead Designer for the Kohler Company and Products Director for 212box in New York City. She received a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 2008 and was awarded an MFA (2020) in Ceramics and an MA (2021) in Art + Design Education by The Rhode Island School of Design.
SK’s design and fine art are united by a passionate exploration of the capabilities of materials and processes, discovering unexpected moments of function and beauty. Her product design work has received 10 patents and numerous acknowledgements including the Red Dot, iF and IDEA awards. Her fine art work has been featured in both national and international shows.
“SK has an instant emotional response when encountering juxtapositions; they tend to trigger in her, immediately, stories, narratives. Like a biographer, she sees a shared humanity in our individual responses to the world; she has a keen visual, emotional, conceptual radar.”
- Murray Moss, Moss Bureau
“[SK is] consistently dedicated to the rigors of design, extraordinarily talented in in-depth research, and always filled with enthusiasm with each new assignment…Besides her diligence, [SK] is unique because she is able to approach design problems with very creative ideas across all disciplines…She exhibits a rare combination of qualities: she is utterly original, and truly is a maker of beautiful things….”
- Eric Clough, Principal, 212box
Contact: skobstudio@gmail.com