With million dollar figures being thrown at auction, it’s easy to forget that art can just be made for fun. It’s ok to make work that doesn’t need to be for someone else or about anything, really. Insert all the tacky slogans you want, ‘Just Do It’, ‘Live the Journey’ — whichever.
For British artist, Joe O’Donnell, skateboarding taught him early on to chase a feeling. Born in Milton Keynes and now based up in Manchester, O’Donnell continues to work at the intersection of skateboarding and art, creating work that is reminiscent of early teletext art from the 1970s, which imparts a feeling of liveliness and joy.
While art is entirely subjective, it’s objectively hard not to smile a bit when looking at O’Donnell’s work. A beady-eyed horse looking out of a washy stable, pigeons ripping apart a bag of chips or an animation of a car endlessly driving up a staircase — who knows what the message is, but it’s brilliant.
Animations, prints and woodblock sculptures have been a constant throughout his career, as is his more digitally-focused creations, but painting has become a recurrent interest within his practice. In particular, he creates amusing portraits of dogs — call him a pup portraitist, if you will — simply because their expressions make him smile.
For the latest Pen & Paper, Hypeart caught up with O’Donnell to retrace his sources of inspiration and how he gets through creative constraints.
