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Bio

In many ways, Gerald O’Connor and his artwork provide a study in contrasts. O’Connor’s gregarious personality – full of tongue-in-cheek humor delivered with a restless, staccato enthusiasm – belies the quietly introspective mood of his paintings.

Rather than assault, dazzle and daze the unwary observers, O’Connor’s artwork invites a more intimate viewing experience, articulated in muted tomes and graceful textures.

Pressed to describe the solemn power of his paintings, O’Connor can’t resist lightening up a serious topic by cracking a smile. “More than color, I take great joy in subtlety of surface. I think of it as a visual texture, which you can almost feel with your eyes.”

Painting with acrylic on canvas or embossed paper, O’Connor’s moderately sized artworks almost invariable feature a subdued palette of colors – ranging from cool grays to worm to warm browns – punctuated by judicious gold accents. His emphasis on texture yields a rich variety of sheen’s, glosses, rough and smooth surfaces. To add another level of complexity and depth, O’Connor frequently tops his painted surfaces with silk screens, usually containing a theme echoing a classical art history reference.

O’Connor owes much of his singular style to two distinct influences: a lifelong love of worldwide travel (including extensive journeying throughout Europe and the Orient), and a strong academic and professional background as an art historian.

“I really love Chinese and Japanese art, especially sculpture. I’m also very interested in the calligraphy of many different countries. Although I don’t understand what the writing means, I love the abstract symbols and shapes.”

By juxtaposing diverse cultural references in his painting, O’Connor underscores the essential beauty inherent in each. “I’m not trying to make a comparison or statement,” he notes, “but I will often incorporate cultural influences from the Orient and the west in the same artwork I feel that excellence can coexist, and these images can fit beautifully together.”

In a similar fashion, O’Connor often mixes antiques, exotic, and modern references in his painting to create a disarmingly foreign-yet-familiar aura, “almost a nostalgia for something you might not even have known before.”

A first generation American, O’Connor was born in 1942 to parents who had immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. O’Connor and his three siblings grew up in a working class Manhattan neighborhood, and it was in his New York City hometown the O’Connor studies art history at Columbia University and CCNY. Following graduation, he worked as an art curator for a decade, including a stint from 1969 to 1974 at the Hirschborn museum – which at the time was a brand new branch of the Smithsonian devoted entirely to modern art.

Then at age 32, things changed. For most of his life he had merely dabbled in painting, opting instead to concentrate on his career as an art historian. But in 1974, “rather than being a curator, I finally realized that I really wanted to paint,” he laughs with self-effacing irony, “and I decided I would set the world on fire with my own paintings.”

The conflagration didn’t materialize as he had envisioned. But by continually exploring and expanding his creative vocabulary, O’Connor has steadily built his career. Happily married for almost 20 years, O’Connor and his wife have forsaken Manhattan apartment living for a home of their own – almost. “We are owned by our Labrador retriever,” he chuckles, “who seems to run the place.”

Although O’Connor’s personality differs greatly from his artwork, the two share a strong sense of unpredictability and individuality.

“Painting is really sort of organic. It grows on its own. Your vision is never matched by the reality of the final artwork. Things are always different, because the painting dictates its own creation. I look for the happy accident. I prepare the surface – embossing and painting the paper, for instance – and then I sort of see where it’s going to go. I apply paint in watery glazes, and let it drip and go. “Having set up this situation, I try to impose my own order on it,” he smiles, “but you never know how it’s going to end up.”

GERALDO'CONNOR