O'Connor Art Gallery
The mission of the O’Connor Art Gallery is to present the Dominican University academic community with timely, relevant and focused contemporary art exhibitions that foster critical and thoughtful dialogue across disciplines. Located in Lewis Hall, steps away from many of the art department’s studios and classrooms, the gallery is particularly accessible to art students as a space for intimate engagement and reflection. In addition to curated exhibitions, the gallery is the site of an annual juried student show and senior thesis exhibitions.
The gallery is open to the public during the academic year.
- Monday–Friday, 10:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
- Saturday, 11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.*
Free and all are welcome.
For information, please contact Jennifer Mannebach, director, at galleryinfo@dom.edu.
Location: Lewis Hall, Fourth Floor.
*Please note that guests may have to access Lewis Hall through the side entry of the library on Saturdays.
ON EXHIBIT
Joanne Aono and Sofía Fernández Díaz
Threads and Granules
January 15–February 15
Reception: Wednesday, January 15, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Artist Talk at 4:30 p.m.
Art by Joanne Aono
No easy beauty characterizes the work of Joanne Aono and Sofia Fernandez-Diaz. Grounded in immersive research, both artists de-materialize the familiar, and embrace challenging paths in work and life that recognize the complexities in their twining. They callback to ancestral practices that revel in excavation, renewal and transformation. This feeds a practice that is not just a pursuit of formal beauty but one that engages holistically in unison with nature and daily ritual, growing studio habits with rigor, and broader ideas about lived experience.
Art by Sofía Fernández Díaz
Joanne Aono is a visual artist and curator; she lives, works, and maintains a holistic farm in north central Illinois. Her research-based drawings and installations address identity, immigration, and the environment. Her Japanese American identities and experience as a twin sister find their way into the form and content of her work. Dualities of homeland inform Sofia Fernandez Diaz’s practice as well, as she exchanges ideas and documents culturally specific processes with artisans from her birthplace in Mexico City. Profound attention to the smallest detail are evidenced in her tiny, vigorous sculptures. They look delicate but tough…assertive in their gestures. Some feel seed-like in their coiled potential. Aono has worked with literal seeds as a medium that collaborates with the ecosystem, yielding artistic control. This reminds us of the power inherent in small things and surrendering to uncertainty and the vicissitudes of nature. Echoed in the words of poet Gretel Ehrlich: “I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.”
‘Threads and Granules’ may call to mind the warp and weft of a textile, and the minuscule (grain-like) elements that can comprise a textured surface. It is also the literal breakdown of the word mitochondria- the powerhouse of the cell, passed down through the matrilineal line. Mito (thread) and Chondris (granule) describe the nature of this dual morphology of the structures as they appear microscopically. Both Aono and Fernandez Diaz trust the process of discovery and harness the power of slow looking by pulling you closer through modalities like intimate scale, translucency and repetitive labor. This work inspires delight in the moment, but also curiosity about what is and what could be.
About the Artists
Joanne Aono is a visual artist, curator, and holistic farmer. She has participated in solo and group exhibitions including Boundary (Chicago, IL), Illinois State Museum (Chicago, Springfield, and Lockport), and Governors State University (University Park, IL). Upcoming exhibitions include Yale Institute of Sacred Music (New Haven, CT), The Plan (Chicago, IL), and UIS Visual Arts Gallery (Springfield, IL). She has received multiple grants, and her art has been reviewed in publications such as Hyperallergic, Chicago Reader, and Chicago Magazine. Aono directs the alternative art project, Cultivator- Chicago Art Exhibitions & Farm Art Projects, and serves on the exhibition committee of the Riverside Arts Center. She maintains a studio at Bray Grove Farm in north central Illinois.
Sofía Fernández Díaz came to Chicago after receiving the Joan Livingston scholarship to earn her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies at SAIC. After graduating, she was selected to receive a Spark grant by Chicago Artist Coalition and invited to hold a 2023 Radicle Studio Residency at Hyde Park Art Center. She previously earned a BFA in Painting and Printmaking from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and a degree in Art Anthropology from CIESAS in Mexico City. In addition to being exhibited, published, and collected both nationally and internationally, Sofía has spent more than a decade exchanging ideas with artisans across Mexico, sharing her documentation and intimate knowledge of their processes and daily rituals through workshops on natural pigments and dyeing.
PAST EXHIBITS
Scott Wolniak
Aggregations
October 23–December 4
Reception: Wednesday, October 23 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Artist Talk at 4:30
Scott Wolniak has exhibited extensively throughout the US. His work has been written about in publications including ArtForum, Art in America and the Chicago Tribune, and is part of numerous permanent collections, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Lynden Sculpture Garden, Milwaukee. Wolniak received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995 and MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2002. He is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Chicago and is represented by Goldfinch Gallery.
Image: Grapefruit
Nnenna Okore
landfeels
August 28–October 12
Reception: Wednesday, September 4; 4:00-6:00 p.m.
Okore is an internationally acclaimed Nigerian raised, Fulbright Fellow artist and educator who invites dialogue around ecology and sustainable practices through her sculpture and site-specific installations. Her works and public art have been featured in major venues, including the Museum of Art and Design, New York, Spelman Museum of Fine Art, Museu Afro Brasil, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Cleveland Museum of Art, the BrugesTriennial, and more recently at the University of Iowa Stanley Museum of Art.
Senior Capstone Exhibition
April 10–27
Reception: Friday, April 12, 6:00–8:00 p.m.
The O’Connor Gallery is pleased to announce our final show of the season: The Graphic Design Capstone Exhibition Come help us celebrate our talented students!
Shalom Borrallo
Caleb Egland
Stephon Frost
Callum Moran
Sebastian Rennell
Chris Rice