Artist Christopher O’Connor

Ever since I was a child I wanted to be an artist. There was always something magical, alchemical about the process of conjuring up an image with the simplest of means. I loved how colors could be mixed and in the process create new colors. How brushes and pens could be wielded to create whole new worlds. How when you didn’t have the words to express yourself you had color and shape and light and shade. Drawing and painting seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do.

Coastal Waters No. 20

Over the years I have found myself drawn to a diverse range of artists and styles. I have played and experimented with many and in the process I have come to understand that the artworks that I am most captivated by all have similar qualities – a strong compositional sense, layered coloring, a vibrant surface quality, restrained intensity – add to these the dogged determination to work on a piece until it is finished and you have works of art that are enduring and endlessly engaging. It is with these considerations that I approach my practice of making paintings.

Coastal Waters No. 22

With my current body of work, my intention is to create works that elicit a quiet sense of balance and calm in the viewer. Pictorial compositions that contain a solid architectonic syntax have always made an impact on me. Through the use of vibrant coloring and rigorously constructed compositions, I strive to compose paintings that conjure up an immediate visual impact, one that slowly gives way to engage with the detail and structure implicit in each painting. It is through the surface quality of the paint and within the distilled composition of the painting that the intention of my work is revealed.

O’Connor will be showing his work at The Gallery on Maine Art Hill at 14 Western Ave. in Kennebunk. The gallery is open every day at 10 am. 

To see all available work from Chris O’Connor click below

CHRISTOPHER O’CONNOR ARTIST PAGE