JOHNODONNELLprojects
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Baths of Caracalla
2020
This work is inspired by my visit to the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. It is an amazing location and has beautiful landscaping, green grass, trees and benches. They are very ‘domesticated’ ruins, this is reflected by the white picket fences in the compositions.
Watercolor
20x16inches
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Lie Forms
2019
Lie Forms is a book of "stream of consciousness" drawings. I started these drawings intent to allow organic shapes to accumulate in accidental ways. The images started to remind be of biological phenomena and I allowed ideas of evolution and metamorphosis guide my process.
120 pages
ball point pen & copy paper
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Turtle Dogs
2018
"Turtle Dogs" are a cast of characters I have designed. Originally inspired by small toy sculptures I made in 2010, the character sketches are developed by me and then translated by Austin MacDonald into a legible and more traditional format.
These characters are inspired by Saturday morning cartoons of the 80's
pencil, ink, copy paper
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Crabby Cats
2018
"Crabby Cats" are a cast of characters I have designed. These character sketches are developed by John O'Donnell and then translated by Austin MacDonald into a legible and more traditional format.
pencil, ink, copy paper
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Neapolitan Organism
2017
Marker on Rives BFK
Dimensions range from
11x15 & 22x15 inches
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Hollow Earth
(Organic Systems)
2015-2016
Hollow Earth is a series of drawing imagining and illustrating an invented world within the interior of the Earth. I am inspired by the Hollow Earth hypothesis, subterranean fiction and conspiracy theories.
Marker on Rives BFK
Dimensions range from
7.5x11, 11x15 & 22x15 inches
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Hollow Earth
(Temple Construction)
2015
Marker on Rives BFK
Dimensions range from
7.5x11 & 11x15 inches
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Hollow Earth
(Metamorphic Geology)
2015
Marker on Rives BFK
Dimensions range from
7.5x11 & 11x15 inches
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Tower Sketches
2014-2015
Drawings of invented ruins. Many of these images are studies for screen prints and intaglio prints.
Marker on Bristol Board, 9 x 12 inches
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Stuff-a-Saurs Series
2013
Drawings of dinosaurs composed of food and domestic objects that reference the intersection of fantasy, illusion and science. These objects create the shape of a dinosaur, similar to displays in a museum. Both approaches are based on assembling disparate objects to form the shape of a dinosaur.
Marker on Bristol Board, 17 x 14 inches
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Alhambra
2013
Watercolor drawings of invented ruins and structures that examine the parallel relationship of image construction and building construction. These compositions are driven by a specific process: painting each brick with a single stroke avoiding overlap of marks, allowing architecture to emerge based on the method of construction. Another formal concept, figure/ground relationships, emerges through this process; the white of the paper becomes the mortar holding the bricks together, just as the paper is the literal substrate the image is built upon.
Watercolor on Arches Cover paper, 22x30 inches.
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Myth Structures
2013
Inspired by Giovanni Battissa Piranesi and the historical category of Capricci : a painting or drawing that represents an architectural fantasy, these images combine buildings, archaeological remains and other architectural elements in fictional and often fantastical combinations. The context for these inventions is the white of the page, allowing for an isolated analysis of form.
Watercolor, marker, acrylic applied with airbrush and stencil, Arches Watercolor Paper, 25x40 inches.
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Container Dinosaurs
2014
Drawings of dinosaurs using a fluid line to create a series of interconnected forms that resemble containers, boxes and shipping materials. This series is in response to the Stuff-a-Saurs Series; rather than objects assembling a dinosaur, it is the materials in which the objects are contained that determine the exterior and completed form of the Stuff-a-Saurs skeletons.
Marker on Arches Cover paper, 30x22 inches.