About Kevan

Statement:

There are things I don’t know how to say with words.

My job is to refine my communication, with visual work that serves as transmissions from a deeply human place beyond verbal language, in memory and emotion. Art that is somehow imbued with empathy. This requires an unconventional approach to art-making: I use brooms and the handles of broken wooden tools, I finger paint with mediums until textures and contrasts form a deep harmony, I use ruined paint brushes to create marks I couldn't intentionally make, until a structure of understanding and deep compassion arises on the canvas, and then I stop.

About the artist:

My name is Kevan Joseph O'Connor, and I am a visual artist in Nashville, Tennessee.

I have been pouring over visual art as long as I can remember. Raised in rural Tennessee, time immersed in nature influenced and shaped my sense of wonder. I grew up surrounded by my mother’s glass art studio – seeing observant behavior and persistent experimenting created a constant curiosity and a love for the growth of ideas.

My pieces take time. There are long breaths in between quick brushstrokes; sometimes days of decision in between changes of color. Activating and engaging with each painted environment is filled with immersive moments where balance, space, negative shape, and depth are all interacting. Visual art gives me vowels and language to stretch my observations around; it is such a deep and inner-motion that the end goal of a painting is rarely, if ever in view during the creation. It is like learning to speak; I paint, draw, make markings, and after a few days, have managed to form one word. On other pieces I feel deeply connected to, I may be clumsily putting together an entire sentence of thought. I don’t know how to instill wonder – but I hope my work causes a slow curiosity to begin.