William J. O'BrienChicago artist William J. OBrien works in multiple mediums, including ceramic, textiles, wood, and metal, along with works on paper. His corpus reflects a playful attention to the expected properties of each material, and a subsequent subversion of their ordinary uses. OBrien's 2011 Renaissance Society exhibitionhis first solo museum presentationincluded approximately 100 ceramic works, many of them never before exhibited. OBriens increasingly