What Happens When a Child’s Drawing Grows Up? ‘Towards Childhood’ by Phelan O’Hara at Galerie Michael Haas, Berlin

A yellow, round sun… Beneath it, a green triangular tree… People with stick legs and line bodies lined up along the baseline of the canvas. We all know this alphabet very well; however, we usually learn it at five or six years old and over time abandon it to the dusty shelves of our minds. English painter Phelan O’Hara (b. 1940), on the other hand, has resolutely refused to abandon this primitive visual alphabet for a full 15 years.

Meeting art lovers at Galerie Michael Haas in Berlin, the exhibition “Towards Childhood” (Çocukluğa Doğru) neither passively copies childhood drawings nor simply imitates them while bringing them to the canvas. O’Hara’s canvases are highly original, adult compositions born from the universal patterns of a childlike visual language. There are only 8 days left for us to see this striking exhibition, whose closing date is July 31, 2026.

Not Through the Eyes of a Child, But Through the Filter of an Adult

O’Hara’s approach to children’s drawings might seem like a naive or charming gesture at first glance; however, the background relies on a much deeper and conceptual reckoning. The artist makes no impossible claim to “paint like a child” in front of his large-scale canvases. For it is inherently impossible for an adult mind to imitate childlike innocence. Instead, O’Hara uses the stereotypical and universal forms in the visual world of children—stylized trees, stick figures, flat houses, and line baselines—as raw material.

The subtle difference is extremely critical: what we see on the canvases are not enlarged reproductions of an existing child’s drawing. O’Hara constructs entirely new sentences with this language, whose alphabet he borrows from children’s pre-alphabetic visual memory. These works, also establishing close contact with Art Brut and naive art traditions, feed off English fairy tales, old song lyrics (such as House of the Rising Sun), or humorous details of everyday life. The resulting works are neither entirely childlike nor completely adult creations; they are memory spaces suspended between two different worlds—familiar yet equally uncanny.

In Pursuit of a Single Visual Memory for 15 Years

Phelan O’Hara’s uninterrupted continuation of this style for over 15 years is not a temporary curiosity or a personal fetishism; on the contrary, it is a long-term research into visual memory, repressed memories, and the journey of images in the subconscious. How children see the world, how this simple way of seeing is suppressed by social norms in adulthood, and the jarring impact created when this suppressed language is transferred to a massive canvas format constitute the artist’s main focus.

The exhibition’s title, “Towards Childhood”, summarizes precisely this duality. This expression symbolizes not “reaching childhood,” but an uninterrupted “orientation” toward it. It is not a final destination to be reached; it is a mental journey sustained between childhood and adulthood.

Frequently Asked Questions About Phelan O’Hara’s “Towards Childhood” Exhibition

Where and on what dates can the exhibition be visited?

• The exhibition is open for visits between July 9 – 31, 2026, at Galerie Michael Haas in Berlin (Niebuhrstraße 5, 10629 Berlin-Charlottenburg).

Which days and hours is the gallery open?

• Galerie Michael Haas can be visited Tuesday–Friday between 11:00–18:00, and Saturdays between 11:00–15:00.

Who is Phelan O’Hara and what is his artistic practice based on?

• Born in 1940, the English painter has been developing an original painterly language in dialogue with the Art Brut tradition for over 15 years by transferring universal forms, stylized figures, and color usage from children’s drawing language onto massive canvases.

NO-26 Editor’s Art Route Note

There are only 8 days left on the calendar for the exhibition closing its doors on July 31! Galerie Michael Haas, located on Niebuhrstraße in Berlin-Charlottenburg, is a great stop for those who want to experience how universal clichés transform into original adult artworks on giant canvases. If you are in Berlin before summer ends, be sure to add this exhibition to your agenda to reconnect with that simple yet profound alphabet of childhood!