About

STATEMENT

I graduated from UC Berkeley with an MA in Painting. I work with the photographic image, doing portraits and urban landscapes. With some of my imagery, I combine the photographic image with paint , pastel and collage. The photographic image is a fixed element, while the paint and collage are mutable. 

Working on clear film enables me to see through the thin veneer of the photographic image to the layers of paint and pastel below, offering a slightly skewed reality. 

In the assemblages, architectural imagery is set into salvaged doors and mirror frames to create a resonance between the image and the object. Recent work , produced during and after Covid lockdown, has included de-silvering framed mirrors, which then becomes a layer to look through and to reflect back.

I have taken portraits throughout my career, and the 4 x 5 polaroid Type 55 self-portrait process came out of a need to find a suitable way to work in sensitive situations. From 1989-95 I photographed at 4 Centers for AIDS services in SF, Oakland and Richmond, CA. This series is now part of the Photography collection of SFMOMA, and the SF Public Library National AIDS Archive digitization project of AIDS related material.

BIO

Jeannie O’Connor was born in San Francisco and graduated from UC Berkeley with an MA in Art.

Jeannie O'Connor's work has been shown internationally and was awarded the SECA award by SFMOMA and the Phelan award in Photography. 

Jeannie O'Connor taught art and photography at CCA, SF Art Institute and Berkeley City College. Her work has been associated with the Michael Shapiro Gallery, the K Kimpton Gallery, the Susan Spiritus Gallery, the SFMOMA Artists Gallery and Transmission Gallery.

Her work is in the collections of the Bibliotheque Nationale, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, the Bancroft Library  and many private collections. 

"Jeanne O'Connor's rural and urban landscapes at Susan Spiritus Gallery are equally painterly and photographic. By reconciling these two methods that seem mutually exclusive, O'Connor creates a body of work that is evocative, poignant and extremely personal." Nancy Kay Turner

To see 2024 resume, click here.