Brendan O’Connell is an artist who divides his time between writing and painting, between figuration and abstraction.

After graduating from Emory University with a degree in Philosophy and Spanish Lit, he moved to Paris to write a novel about painters. Having never drawn before, he picked up a pencil and discovered an innate ability to draw and paint. Six months later he quit his job teaching Spanish to devote himself to painting. He copied Durers, abstracted from Delacroix and explored in depth many of the Old Master Spanish and French painters. He was particularly fortunate to have access to many private collections in Switzerland.


A British painter invited Brendan to live in his castle in the south of France. There he spent a couple of winters alone, painting and thinking. In the summers he earned a living drawing portraits and caricatures in the street, an arduous task that increased his skill and deepened his commitment to personal expression.

His paintings emerged out of the European landscape tradition and found fertile ground in Fifties French abstraction. Early on he painted outdoors, inspired by the intense colors of the German Expressionists and tempered by a certain tidiness in the Nabis movement.

By nature Brendan is a colorist. Influenced by the color theories of Rudolf Steiner and the order and simplicity of the Tao by Lao Tsu, his work explores color as spiritual identity. He uses color to portray the struggle of opposing forces, for instance, of gravity and transcendence. He often uses bold contrasts in an effort to create an expression of balance.

Like the iconic American painters, Marsden Hartely and Edward Hopper, after an art education in Europe, Brendan returned home to paint America. For the past five years he has been executing paintings about Wal-Mart, the quintessential American shopping experience. Presently he works out of a barn in the Connecticut countryside.