WALMARTS: paintings by Brendan O'Connell, offers unique impression of the big box store and its patrons
Posted October 9, 2012
For the past seven years Brendan O'Connell has been exploring art of the everyday, particularly that of shopping and consumerism. In the spirit of the Post-Impressionists who painted the commercial boulevards of Paris, O'Connell took to the aisles in Walmart, which have become the most trafficked thoroughfares on earth. Mr. O’Connell’s Walmart paintings have been collected widely and exhibited in New York, Shanghai, Toronto, and Boston.
A self-taught artist, O’Connell spent many years in Europe, honing his artistic skill by working as a portraitist on the streets of Paris. His process for the Walmart paintings is twofold, first visiting a Walmart store to draw and take photographs, then using that information to create the paintings in his Cornwall, Connecticut studio. Drawn to the repetitive patterns on the shelves, O’Connell is also interested in the diverse depiction of America Walmart reveals. “I would argue that Walmart is the most visited interior architecture on the planet, and it is quite possibly the most democratic,” he says.
Cate McQuaid of the Boston Globe has written, “O’Connell’s paintings fit into a long line of Pop Art celebrations of American consumer culture...but O’Connell adds an impressionistic twist. His style is painterly; he experiments with translucence, abstraction, and patterning. His delight in color pattern and the bustle of society recalls the work of Impressionists and Post-Impressionists such as Pissarro and Seurat...”
The Tremaine Gallery will exhibit a selection of O’Connell’s Walmart canvases. The exhibition will run October 12 through November 18. An opening reception will be held Saturday, October 13 from 4 - 6 p.m. The reception is open to the public.
Please phone 860-435-4423 for information regarding Walmarts at The Tremaine Gallery. For more information about Brendan O’Connell please visit www.brendanoconnell.com
