Double Vision | Bill O’Donnell
Reception: Friday, January 17, 5-7 PM
Artist Statement:
When I was a kid riding in the back seat of the family car, I’d watch the side of the road and by closing one eye, would align the bottom of the window with the rush of horizontals speeding past.
The fence tops, walls and guard rails formed an oscillating line that danced with the fixed horizon of the window frame. For me, this was close enough to the infinity of pure LINE, the ideal construct described in my geometry schoolbooks.
Once introduced to the iconic shapes and solids in those books, I saw them everywhere, mental templates to be superimposed on any scene. The overlay of geometric ideals transformed a baseball into the perfect sphere, a building block into the flawless cube.
The DOUBLE VISION pictures celebrate the play between intellectual and perceptual knowledge, the flickering between memory and observation, the blend of mystery and delight when truth and truth disagree.
Artist Bio:
Bill O’Donnell earned his MFA from The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. He taught at Loyola University Chicago and the School of the Art Institute before joining the faculty of Illinois State University, retiring from a full professorship in 2019.
His curated solo exhibitions include shows at SOHO PHOTO GALLERY in New York, the CHICAGO CULTURAL CENTER, the TORONTO PHOTOGRAPHERS WORKSHOP, GALLERY 13 in Minneapolis and the WATER TOWER GALLERY in Chicago.
His awards include an NEA regional fellowship, two Artist Fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council and artist residencies at The Anderson Center in Red Wing, MN, The Hambidge Foundation in Rabun Gap, GA, and the Oxbow Center in Saugatuck, MI.
His work is included in the Chicago Project of the Catherine Edelman Gallery, the Seattle Portable Works collection and the Midwest Photographers Project at the Museum of Contemporary Photography.