New Media: John O'Donnell

Fruitloop Sculpture New Media Artist John Odonnell
John O’Donnell, Fruitloop Sculpture New Media Artist John Odonnell, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist
John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry
John O’Donnell, John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist
John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry
John O’Donnell, John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist
John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry
John O’Donnell, John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist
John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry
John O’Donnell, John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist
John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry
John O’Donnell, John O’Donnell: Psychedelic Pantry, 2014, Installation and video (approximately 1 minute, looped), Courtesy of the artist

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

New Media: John O'Donnell

William L. and Bette Batchelor Gallery

Psychedelic Pantry, a new media installation created by John O’Donnell, points to moments of everyday life while highlighting the bizarre and mysterious moments we often overlook while shuffling to the toaster or coffee maker in the morning.

Appearing as a simple representation of a kitchen area or pantry, further inspection reveals there is more happening than food storage. Psychedelic Pantry is a New Media installation that reveals moments of constructed metaphysical awareness to reveal hallucinatory or surreal sensation, playing on ideas of peripheral vision and imagined movement. The aesthetic is informed by the combination of rather mundane objects typically found in a kitchen and psychedelic imagery. This installation intends to move past the typical category of drug induced awareness and speak about the potential of common items and commercial packaging to inform a heightened experience. Inspired by the brightly colored packaging of cereal boxes and other common snacks, this installation calls our attention to the hypnotic, and often times annoying, design of food items packaging. This is also a reference to the growing number of artificial additives that are found in a large portion of the food for sale in a grocery store and ultimately brought home for temporary storage before consumption.

O’Donnell, who lives and works in Connecticut, is a multidisciplinary artist and has created performance pieces for the Museum of New Art in Detroit, Proof Gallery in Boston, Flux Space in Philadelphia, and SOHO20 Gallery in New York City.