* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Brian O’Connor was raised in New Mexico and received a BFA from University of New Mexico in 1983.
In his paintings he uses human figures to tell a story. Each character represents part of the sociopolitical narrative. For O’Connor, painting is a vehicle for grappling with the world and make sense of what he calls ‘the beautiful mess’.
‘In an era when there is an electronically driven virtual counterpart to nearly every human experience, I feel lucky to be able to smear ground up earth on canvas with a brush to create pictures that draw from observation of the physical world and its inhabitants,’ he says.
His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide. In 1990 he received a Western States NEA Fellowship. He has lectured and conducted painting workshops from San Diego to Santa Fe, and now teaches a painting course at Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, where he lives.
