Painting shoppers at box stores or the products themselves — often at Walmart stores around the country — are the signature subjects of Connecticut artist Brendan O’Connell.
As part of a national painting tour to bring attention to his Everyartist project (www.everyartist.me), which aims to emphasize the role of art in schools, O’Connell visited the El Con Walmart yesterday, and completed a painting on-site.
More than 200,000 children in 46 states were signed up to share a day of painting, drawing and creativity through the artist’s most recent Everyartist event in October, in which participants created art about their favorite stories on the same day.
Over the next 18 months, O’Connell will paint in Walmart stores in 15 cities across the country, in hopes of reaching out to schools in those cities. Since Tucson’s schools haven’t participated yet, his hope is to create awareness here.
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O’Connell has garnered attention for his brand paintings from publications such as Time magazine and the New Yorker.
“I didn’t set out to be the ‘brand painter,’” O’Connell said, ‘but it kind of evolved into that because people have very interesting personal relationships to brands. We’re in this weird period where people relate to these consumer products. Their memories are punctuated by these memories like, ‘I remember when my grandmother died and Dad got me Dreyer’s ice cream.’
“We have this human desire to create meaning, even if it appears there’s no meaning there.”
O’Connell’s painting in Tucson included Dole bananas and Butterball turkeys.
“I’m a vegan, so bananas are kind of my Thanksgiving dish,” he said. “But the rest of the world relates to turkeys, and it’s the one time of the year that most Americans have turkeys.”