John J. O'Connor (artist)

John Jerome O’Connor (born 1972) is an American artist primarily known for his large-scale, labor-intensive, abstract works on paper. In these works, O'Connor transforms information through idiosyncratic processes, creating equally idiosyncratic abstract shapes, forms, and patterns. His works draw on relationships between spoken and written language, psychological fallacies, self-experimentation, mathematics, emergence in science and anthropology, and climate prediction and error.

O'Connor's work maps transformations from one known state to another—whether sudden and dramatic, like a political revolution that upends an entire belief structure instantaneously, or an earthquake that opens the ground in seconds. He is equally intrigued by more subtle, almost imperceptible changes that occur incrementally. In these phase transitions, the precise moment of transformation is elusive, as when rain turns to ice, or when a person shifts from believer to an agnostic.

O'Connor explores these phenomena across various dimensions — natural, mathematical, social, psychological, and political. His work seeks to visually capture the specific, often invisible moments of transformation, from the mundane to the monumental.