paintings 2007

Keith O'Connor paintings

2007 - Paintings by: Keith

last update Dec - 7- 2007

currently working mostly on portraits see home page for link
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Latest Paintings added to bottom

Latest Painting:

See below for details

Silent Lake
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Silent Lake:
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Done for my students as an exercise in flat and rounded shapes. It uses an architectural style based upon extensive use of the french curve to explore a unified group of non circular lines.

This approach introduces painting as a construct of artistic elements which may be used to represent nature but not imitate nature.

Illusinist Art concerns itself with destroying the flat painting surface thus creating an imaginary world into which the viewer may journey. Modern Art concerns itself with the flat aspect of the paintings surface.

Optical Art 2007-1
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Optical Art 2007-1:
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

In this work I use a conglomerate of rectilinear geometric shapes in conjunction with architectural art concepts as containers for variations in hue, intensity, value and quality.

The objective is to create a virtual space perception without resorting to conventional perspective. Nor did I wish to follow Hoffman in his use of agressivly coloured shapes which have a general rectilinear character to achieve the same end but follow a much smaller and less imposing scale.

Optical Art 2007-1
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Optical Art 2007- 2:
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

I have added black symbols on top of the work. This layer interacts to create something interesting. I have no idea what to call it. Yet the visual effect does seem interesting.

Village Innt 2007
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Village Inn
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

An exercise in oblique perspective. Front facing planes are parallel to the picture plane and all side plane shapes do not converge to a vanishing point in the distance.

Most colours are kept in high key and close toned.

Relationships between sinple colour shapes form the main theme of this work. Tangent lines which are normally excluded from more memetic type compositions are included. The links to memetic type compositions are minimized.

Drying the Nets 2007
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Drying the Nets
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

I use this as an exercise and example to my students that a painting does not have to photographically immitate nature.

A painting is firstly an exercise in graphic invention based upon a system of relationships with in a unified whole.

Oolique perspective is used in this creative and inventive work.

The constant water rhythm of - slap rock, slap rock - against the boat-house floor, recalls my childhood association with summertime recreational boating docks.

These two paintings combine the modern flat with the illusionist desire to imitate reality creating a type of bridge painting.

Chromatic Composition with White Diamond 2007
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Chromatic Composition
with White Diamond
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Some people think that an abstract painting is very easy to do.

You must invent a system of relationships between simple shapes, lines and colours. It is easier to memorize and paint a tree or fence than it is to sit down with nothing and begin to invent relationships between shapes, lines and colours.

Rocks and Trees
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Rocks and Trees
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

I wanted to continue playing with the optical aspects of colour but decided to apply it to a more traditional mid 20th century approach.

There are some things i would do differently but there is always a next painting but there is a kind of softness to it which requires further exploration.

Little Island
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Little Island
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Again I am trying something different. Tired of the same old 'do it like a photograph'.

Picked out ideas from medieval art - note how the sky is treated as a background design.

It has some interesting ideas. I am not completely happy with it or completely disappointed - somewhere in-between.

Proto-type Mural Module
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Prototype Mural Module 2 represents one of 15 modules that make up a mural for the Kanata Seniors Centre.

Proto-type Mural Module 2
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Each icon represents a Senior Centre Activity . The mural is meant to stimulate, entertain and lift the spirits of Centre visitors and members.

Members of my drawing and painting class will participate in evaluating and painting the mural design and donating the finished mural to the Seniors Centre for permanent exhibition..

The final mural will be painted on birch wood painting panels surounded with 1/4 in space between panels..

Overpainted this module see Landscape below

Passages -I
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Passages has its roots in streets, backyards, fences, short-cuts between buildings - all the place to place movements that a young active lower-town boy would find himself in need of.

Passages I
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Some where in the maze of secret passages that young boys travel - home, a meeting place or a frends house would be clearly marked on an invisable map.

There has always been something facinating about where I could or couldn't get to that lead me to finding ways around things.

As a pre- teen I would encourrage my older brother to tye me up before he went to school. I always escaped and made it to school - sometimes late.

Passages -II
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Removing the painted borders and moving towards adjacent neutrals with definite tonal contrast creats and interesting quiet affect.

Passages II
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Felt it needed some contrast so soft yellow green and yellow orange were added to some of the pattern

I recall as a preschooler standing at the sink running my fingers through a gentle flow of tap water - facinated by the gentle feeling - its solid look but intangable elusiveness - it was there but not there - my passages theme allows me to explore this and other early memories.

Passages -III
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Added my passages compositional structure as background to my 'Chromatic Composition with White Diamond' (see above) created a new and interesting set of visual interactions.

Passages III
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

In place of colour shapes derived from my passages theme maaterial a separate layer of colour shapes provide more opportunity for graphic invention.

It relates historically to my mural design which was influenced my 'Optical Art 2007 - 2' see above.

Emotionally I find myself preferring to explore a quality of simple joy in my work.

Themes & Variations I
24 x18in. acrylic on canvas

Themes & Variations I
acrylic & ceramic on streached canvas
24 x 18in

Expanding my Passages III theme variations to include a more densely composed linear layer that is more organically structured; acting as a counterpoint to my more geometrically structured passages under-layer.

This new organic layer is also filled with chromatic colours as in Passages III and includes small quarter inch cermac tiles attached to the surface. There is more organic flow providing enough difference to result in a new series title : Themes & Variations as more descriptive of the complex interaction between layers, shapes :attributes and materials.

This looks like a definite direction for me to explore over the next few months.

Green Eyes
20 x16in. acrylic on canvas

Green Eyes
acrylic on canvas
20 x 16in

Promised my advanced students their next exercise would be a portrait head study in modern style.

The colour shapes have been kept flat in order to distance the memetic pull of portrait sitter object and retain a link to the artist driven painting medium and materials. Multiple use of chromatic crescendo has been introduced. Note red-violet / yellow-green for one.

Western portrait painting incorporates the sitter's generic, cultural and individual attributes filtered through the portrait artist's temperment.

Colour Crystal
20 x16in. acrylic on canvas

Colour Crystal
acrylic on canvas
20 x 16in

Felt it was time to go back to basics and build another colour crystal based upon my latest colour ideas.

I have been reading an interesting book on colour written in the 1950's. Like most books it descrives what is done and not what is done in the context of colour development history.

The artist writer was using an interesting variation on the old double primaries palette without using the double primaries palette as a starting point. A similar action occurs in the book 'Yellow and Bue don't make Green' which is also a (artistically useless ) variation on the double primaries palette.

Every colour exists in relation to the light that falls upon it and its proxmity to other colours and is thus evaluated in terms of its four attributes, hue, value, chroma and quality. A modern approach to painting is to view it as an interacting system of colours.

Red Vase
16 x20in. acrylic on canvas

Red Vase
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Going back to basics also means creating simple compositions that can be used to experiment with colour ideas.

Notice my passages motif in the background.

Simple colour shapes with the use of linear outline - sometimes coloured - sometimes white.

My objective was to enclose coloured curved, angular shapes and lines that counterpoint the flat surface within a narrow depth of field

Themes & Variations II
24x18in. acrylic on canvas

Note: if you saw this painting on April 6 it has been modified - the composition contained too much variety at the expense of unity. This resulted in my painting out a number of areas. It now recalls to mind rain-water running in a variety of paths down a window.

Themes & Variations II
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18in

This one I blame on my siblings. As a child they introduced me to that coloured crystal which upon looking through it - surrounded everything with a rainbow of colour. An experience not forgotten but constantly remembered for over sixty years.

I could not predict how this painting would end but, that is the norm for my approach to painting.

Somewhere in my mind ideas for Themes & Variations III are being assembled.They will continue to evolve until the painting is finished.The act of painting results in overpainting changes as new ideas are accepted and old ones rejected.

One of my former art teachers asked where my ideas came from? 'I throw a bunch of ideas into my mind and after a while they bounce back in different arrangements.'

Themes & Variations III
16x20in. acrylic on canvas

Themes & Variations III
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

This is an experment in creating the effect of light eminating from the painting.

The basic idea was to use a simple pattern like a checker-board: give it some interest and quiet mood.

The result went beyond my expectations and is generating ideas on a series of sterio-colour field experiments.

Themes & Variations IV
16x20in. acrylic on canvas

Themes & Variations IV
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

Playing with flat shapes close tone overlayed with chroma colours of red and blue green

The objective was to move the eye over the complex edge and shape surface. A spot arrangement in chromatic red was layered and arranged to complement the multaplicity like style.

Roseberry Street
24x18in. acrylic on canvas

Roseberry Street
acrylic on canvas
24 x 18in

An imaginary painting named in honor of my honorary membership in Roseberry Street.

Flat shaped coloured planes provide a general top down view of a street.

Coloured linear structures some informationally disconnected and others connected to the underlying coloured planes, combine with joyfull colours to create an innocent mood.

To see joy - to project only joy - onto an otherwise hectic scene of people having to go about the busines of daily living which is sometimes joyfull and othertimes only a necessity - a duity - a selfless duty - a selfless unappreciated duity.

My painting brings me back to the pleasures that can be found in daily living.

Blue Sky
24x18in. acrylic on canvas

Blue Sky
acrylic, ground glass, mica, artistic stones on stretched canvas
24 x 18in

Overlaping rectangular coloured planes provide both lateral and perceptual space movements .

Ground glass with mica adds subtle changing colour and texture to some rectangles while the artistic coloured stones add focal points.

I had been working on a composition which would help some viewers recapture that childhood amazement at simple coloured stones

One consideration was to approach it from an abastract expressionest view point but the formal archectural mode was selected.

Watts Creek
16 x 20in. acrylic on canvas

Watts Creek
acrylic on canvas
16 x 20in

There are days when you regress back into a more traditional style.

Probably just to see if you can still do it.

This was overpainted on proto type module 2 of my seniors mural design - see above.

Warsaw Caves Ontario Canada
20 x 24in. acrylic on canvas

Warsaw Caves
acrylic on canvas
20 x 24in

I like to complete a minimum of one painting per month. Getting desparate because of time commitments I decided to create a third variation on my Warsaw Caves sketches.

This one uses colour in a more expressive manner - also mixed with sand - . A dark damp landscape has been given colour to express the hidden but transforming life force that brings the world from darkness and gloom into a new brighter phase through light and colour..

Self Portrait
16 x 120in. acrylic on canvas board

Self Portrait
2007 Sept
Self Portrait
Acrylic on Canvasboard
16 x 20in

This portrait example prepared for my students is kept in a high tonal key using simple clean shapes but is more refined than the basic approach.

Arranged in the modern style of full front pose but using the overlaping squares technique for composition.

Camera about four (4) feet distant: set on auto.

Along the Old Quarry Trail
16 x 120in. acrylic on canvas board

Along the Old Quarry Trail
2007 Dec

Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20in

Needed a break from portraits so it was landscape playing time.

A simplified arrangemet from nature provides me with a structure upon which to play with colour.

I like flat shapes because of the colour clarity and overall clean impression.

Still Life (Flowers)
16 x 120in. acrylic on canvas board

Still Life (Flowers)
2007 Dec

Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20in

Have not painted a still life in years.

Daylight causes cobalt blue to glow.

Evening light causes the cobalt to blue darken.

I adjusted the blue to an average mid day position.

I like this dramatic changing over time of day effect..

Note: The colours in this Still Life graphic are fairly close to my original painting (as seen on my monitor). This is my first time using the digital RAW file format with a good developer (editor).

Still Life (Flowers)
16 x 120in. acrylic on canvas board

Still Life (Flowers)
2007 Dec

Acrylic on Canvas
16 x 20in

Thought I would play with another still life flower composition.

My compositional preference tend towards the a-symetrical rather than the square.