women in landscape clip

women in landscape-clip from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.
women in landscape from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

woman in landscape

woman in landscape from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

women looking out

women looking out from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

for best quality click HD.

A (brief) History of Looking for culture night belfast 2012

 http://abriefhistoryoflooking.wordpress.com/


A project I did for culture night Belfast. This project is based around the act of voyeurism, "looking and being looked at".

“I want a History of Looking. For the Photograph is the advent of myself as other: a cunning dissociation of consciousness from identity. Even odder: it was before Photography that men had the most to say about the vision of the double. Heautoscopy was compared with an hallucinosis; for centuries this was a great mythic theme.”

― Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography

Using the camera as the thing that separates viewer and looker I gave the public a chance to look at a person in the eyes, in real time, but without the social awkwardness of that person looking directly back.

Volunteers were asked to sit for 10 minutes whilst being filmed and projected on to a shop window. The results were extremely interesting, and the project even featured on the BBC Arts show.

woman in landscape

susanna from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

aerobic collages and moving pictures

"ploughing"

"roll up,roll up"



PLOUGHING

ploughing from Laura O' Connor on Vimeo.

40 days & 40 nights

3 ply marys

Ink drawings done on 3 ply tissues, then peeled back to reveal a blotted line style drawing, distorting the figure. I like the idea of Mary Magdelene as "temptress", a flame haired prostitute etc... speculation around her role in the bible and her dipiction in biblical images as a red haired, lost soul, looking to the heavens really interest me. There is something which says 'defenseless woman' to me and reminds me of a Vermeer painting.  I guess the first time a prostitute was ever explained to me I was 10 and had encountered the word in the bible, I asked my mother what it was.. also the first time I had heard my mother say the word 'sex'... which threw me completely!!

works in progress, march 2012

Two video pieces I'm working on as part of installation work.... unfinished, but interesting non the less

she's lost all the weight off her face....

 pause, touch, engage.......

Mirror Machine Exhibition, Bluewall Gallery

An exhibition of video works by 7 artists practising in Northern Ireland

Louise Shine, Jenny Keane, Ciaran Hussey, Allan Hughes, Laura O'Connor, Paola Bernardelli & Linda Monks

co-curated by Joe Keenan & Laura O'Connor

Laura O'Connor, Jane Fonda

Linda Monks, Sylvanienders

Paola Bernardelli, Jac & Johanna

Jenny Keane, Chord (projection), Dracphylia (monitor)

Louise Shine, (screens on plinths),test card, watching tv & putting away the messages

Allan Hughes, (monitor on crate with bracket) The Listening Station 1

Installation on Ashe Street Cavan

works by Jenny Keane, Ingeminated Battology (left) & Ciaran Hussey, Conveyor Masses (right)

Opening Speeches with Laura & Joe

Some shots of the exhibition installation

MFA Show 2011

 

MFA Midterm show 2011

Two screens showing the same image in different locations of the exhibition. The image is of a woman dressed in a fur hat and fur coat posing in a portrait style, possibly a contemporary image of a magazine cover-shot or an old portrait painting, placed in an anonymous setting looking out from the screen desperately trying to hold a smile in order to please the viewer or hide her boredom.

In View @ Golden Thread Gallery December 2010

In View
10th December 2010 – 29th January 2011
Curated By Sarah McAvera & Peter Richards
In View is an exhibition that establishes a context from which to explore the tensions and dialogues concerned with the physical act of looking. The gaze holds multiple interpretations, such as the voyeuristic, scopophilic, erotic; and is as much dependant upon the viewer, as that which is being viewed. Each artist challenges us to consider our role as a viewer of the works on display, calling into question our gender, the gender of the artist, and our preconceived understanding of the subject, therefore highlighting the tensions that exist within the topic of the gaze.

In Vito Acconci’s video work Pryings (1971), his violent attempts to force open the eyes of his subject are difficult to watch, as is the challenging gaze of Laura O’Connor in her video work Dull, Limp, Lifeless (2010). Like O’Connor, Katherine Nolan encourages the viewer to watch her, and yet reprimands them for doing so. Her work, You Are a Very Naughty Boy! (2009), obscures our view of her at intervals, as if in punishment for gazing upon her scantily dressed body. The photographic works of Shaleen Temple take a slightly different approach, commenting on the level of control held by the gaze of the subject, the artist, and ourselves, the viewer. The exhibition also includes work from Phil Collins, Common Culture, Sara Greavu, Magaret Harrison, Noëmi Lakmaier , ORLAN, and Aine Phillips

Tommy McLoughlin Award

I'm delighted to say I was awarded with the Tommy McLoughlin bursary this year. It is something I have wanted for a while now, as I feel as an artist from Cavan it is an honour to receive such a prize. I am using the award to travel to the Frieze Art Fair in London and to go to Paris where I will be exploring the female art retrospective o from the past century in the George Pompidou Centre, 'Elles á Pompidou' and a number of other shows which are relative to my research.
I would like to thank Cavan County Council's Arts Office, Cavan Institute and the family of the late Tommy McLoughlin who have made this trip possible.

Bluewall show and artists talk

 




 

Delighted to report the exhibition 'Immersed' was a great success. Really loved doing a show with my friends and fellow artists, and of course showing in my favourite new gallery, the Bluewall, it was my pleasure as always to work with Joe, Jane and Jessie.