ARTIST STATEMENT
I am an interdisciplinary artist, who combines various media, including performance, wearable sculpture, 2-d mixed media, and installation to create multi-layered bodies of work to critique established gender roles, cultural norms, social class, religion and politics, history and perception. She considers how these societal elements are interconnected, and the role these underlying factors play within our daily lives, both contemporarily and throughout history. I seek to drive dialog on difficult subject matter that challenges the belief systems and preconceived notions, dominated by a patriarchal lens.
My performance-based works and mixed media collages employ self-portraiture and text to convey the continual mixed messaging directed at women, throughout history, literature, and today’s media and marketing. I am currently developing two separate bodies of work, On Love & Consumption and The Maiden & The Crone. Stylistically these works are on opposite sides of the spectrum. One filled with cheeky and satirical humor, brimming with a barrage of vibrant colors, as it borders on a kitsch aesthetic. The other, dark and surreal, unsettling in nature.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Christy E. O’Connor is in interdisciplinary artist who lives and works in the New York metro area. O’Connor received a BA in Visual Art from Ramapo College of New Jersey, where she studied studio art, photography, and education. She has participated in professional development programs and studio residencies, including Creative Capital at Artworks (Trenton, NJ, 2017) AlterWork Studio (LIC, NY, 2020) and ESKFF (Jersey City, NJ, 2022). Solo exhibitions and installations include The Maiden & The Crone, (2021), Eat, Buy, Love (2021), Victim Shame, Body Blame and Tea Time in Turbulence (2020), Dusklit (2016-2018), Treacherous Women (2018), Vacant Memories, Absent Dreams (2018).
© Christy E. O’Connor