![SP 6737-Edit-large](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/SP_6737-Edit-large.jpg)
John Jerome O’Connor (born 1972) is an American artist primarily known for his large-scale, labor-intensive, abstract works on paper. In these works, O'Connor transforms information through idiosyncratic processes, creating equally idiosyncratic abstract shapes, forms, and patterns. His works draw on relationships between
spoken and written language,
psychological fallacies,
self-experimentation, mathematics,
emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when an entity is observed to have properties its parts do not have on their own, properties or behaviors that emerge only when the parts interact in a wider whole.
Emergence ...
in science and anthropology, an
climate prediction and error
O'Connor's works map transformations from one known state into another – those that occur quickly and ferociously, as in a political revolution where a system of beliefs can be upended in an instant, or when an earthquake tears the ground apart in a flash. He's equally interested in how substantive change occurs
incrementally, almost imperceptibly. In these
phase changes, the exact moment of transformation is virtually imperceptible (the moment when rain becomes ice, or when we turn from a believer into an
agnostic
Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable. (page 56 in 1967 edition) Another definition provided is the view that "human reason is incapable of providing sufficient ...
).
O'Connor explores these phenomena as they exist in diverse aspects of human life - natural, mathematical, social, psychological, and political. His work attempts to visually fix the specific, imperceptible moments of a transformation, from the mundane to the monumental.
Early work
Influenced by the art and music of
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
while studying at
Pratt Institute
Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...
, O'Connor created abstractions based on chance operations. In 1998 he made a series of small drawings by dipping jazz brushes in ink before playing them directly on paper. Each drawing represented a specific beat per minute played for a specific duration. In the late 1990s, O'Connor begin to explore systematic approaches to art making through drawing. These works were diagrammatic and process based. Though the compositions were simpler in these and other experimental works made in this period, O'Connor was laying the basic groundwork for his future methods and defining his unique conceptual framework, which he expanded at the
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 t ...
in 2000.
Recent work
O'Connor's central works are large-scale drawings on paper made with colored pencil, and graphite. He also makes sculpture, photography, collage, and digital art. O'Connor is a member of the artist collectiv
NonCoreProjector Their projec
"Verbolect"is a multi-media work that explores the relationship between
AI and human language, emotion, endurance, and computer-based introspection.
Drawings
O'Connor's drawings are large-scale, detailed, meticulous pieces on paper that bridge text and language with abstraction and pattern. With their integration of information and language with shapes, forms, logos, pop imagery, and patterns, O'Connor's works link the process of looking with that of reading, decoding, and interpreting.
O'Connor's large-scale drawings often contain abstract forms made from multi-colored fields of text and patterns which are partly derived from combining simple logical processes (such as alphabet codes) and partly from intuitive reactions, described as his "trademark hallucinatory style".
These processes often reveal unlikely connections between seemingly disparate data often with humorous or absurdist results. Information used in O'Connor's work include conversations the artist has had with
Cleverbot
Cleverbot is a chatterbot web application that uses machine learning techniques to have conversations with humans. It was created by British AI scientist Rollo Carpenter. It was preceded by Jabberwacky, a chatbot project that began in 1988 and ...
, charts on male pattern
baldness
Hair loss, also known as alopecia or baldness, refers to a loss of hair from part of the head or body. Typically at least the head is involved. The severity of hair loss can vary from a small area to the entire body. Inflammation or scarrin ...
, chess game patterns,
sunspot
Sunspots are phenomena on the Sun's photosphere that appear as temporary spots that are darker than the surrounding areas. They are regions of reduced surface temperature caused by concentrations of magnetic flux that inhibit convection. Sun ...
fluctuations, temperature prediction error, the prophesies of
Nostradamus,
census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
reports, storytelling as transmutation,
memory fallacies,
paradox of the heap
The sorites paradox (; sometimes known as the paradox of the heap) is a paradox that results from vagueness, vague Predicate (grammar), predicates. A typical formulation involves a heap of sand, from which grains are removed individually. With the ...
, the
Linda Problem, key smash patterns, escalation of violence, conspiracy theories, Hollywood filmmaking narratives, consumer
drug
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...
effects,
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
cycles, theories of time perception, rhyming mutations /
Mondegreens
A mondegreen () is a mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase in a way that gives it a new meaning. Mondegreens are most often created by a person listening to a poem or a song; the listener, being unable to hear a lyric clearly, substitutes w ...
, etc..
Patterns that emerge from linking these disparate data are often a structural conduit for his unique logic and subsequent aesthetic. He fuses the information that he's investigating within the patterns and forms he draws as a means of collapsing the space between the generation of a thought, its gradual manifestation, and final conclusion.
Butterflies
![J-6973-Edit-large](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/J-6973-Edit-large.jpg)
O'Connor's recent series of 26 interconnected drawings are large, pictogram-like works that depict, through text and graphic images, the lifespan of a working class male as he encountered myriad obstacles, both real and imagined. These works reference Hollywood filmmaking, consumer
drug
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...
effects, video game spaces,
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
, popular music,
dream imagery, theories of time perception, literary fiction, advertisement
logo
A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents as in a wordma ...
s, etc. In a recent series of photographic collages, O'Connor fused close up
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research.
NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
images of sunspots onto the surface of his face, creating, disturbing composite portraits that investigated the relationship between
celestial patterns and those of the human being on Earth. Overall, many of O'Connor's recent works explore the moment when an individual's internal intentions and desires are affected, opposed, or concretely influenced by a more powerful external force.
Small works
O'Connor also make faster, smaller scaled collages, sculptures, and self-portraits. The time discrepancy in this aspect of his studio practice is intentional and undergirds his exploration of the intersection points between the political, scientific, mathematical, linguistic, and personal.
References
*
External links
*
*Jeffrey Gibson's review in Artforum - https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/201701/john-o-connor-65451
*Smithsonian Archives of American Art - https://www.aaa.si.edu/blog/2015/01/artists-on-diaries-sunspot-diary
Review Written by Charles Shultz Brooklyn Rail*Whitney Museum Collection - http://collection.whitney.org/object/33716
* Museum of Modern Art Collection - https://www.moma.org/collection/works/96839?locale=en
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:OConnor, John J.
1972 births
Living people
American abstract artists
20th-century American painters
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni
21st-century American painters