John O’Connor’s enticingly colorful drawings at Pierogi Gallery’s Chelsea popup take viewers down the rabbit hole into surreal scenarios told with endlessly inventive typography and icons. Here, the eye-grabbing ‘Car Crash’ pictures a fictional multi-car pileup in which cars of lesser value crash into increasingly more expensive vehicles, starting with a Honda Civic and reaching a Lotus and continuing with fictional cars (Dukes of Hazzard, Flintstones). O’Connor explains that the spiraling drawing represents the transfer of kinetic energy from car to car, a stand-in for a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. At the center of this dynamic, pulsing vortex is a worm hole, ready to transport cars, viewers and all into another place and time. (On view at 524 West 19th Street through Feb 10th).
John O’Connor, Car Crash, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 85 x 69.75 inches, 2023.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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