Practice
Selected bodies of work
O’Connell’s practice moves across pattern, perception, structure, illness, and embodied experience — connected by a sustained interest in how images organise sensation, meaning, and attention.
Perception, Health & Research
Gate Control Theory
Silkscreens on wax drawing on casino carpet psychology and the neurological language of sensation, pattern, and surface.
Patterns of Perception — PD
UCL, Parkinson's UK, Wellcome Trust and Central Saint Martins. Co-produced resources now distributed across the NHS, reaching 17,869 people.
Patterns of Perception
UCL, Central Saint Martins, English National Ballet and Parkinson's UK. Workshops in textiles, dance, and art exploring lived experience of Parkinson's.
Alzheimer's Society
Paintings made with natural materials — turmeric, hibiscus — sparking conversation and memory with participants from diverse communities.
Arts 4 Dementia, Science Museum
Six-week collaboration with the Science Museum selecting objects from the Wellcome Medicine Gallery as starting points for participant artworks.
Choreographic Objects
English National Ballet's Dancing with Parkinson's group. Participants designed visual scores for music directors and dancers to interpret and respond to.
Visuospatial Tests
Faceted wall-relief forms derived from reflections in parked car panels — sculpture at the intersection of cognitive testing and optical experience.
Accurate Results
Footprints captured in impression foam at DKUK — a growing archive of geometric identity, reimagining hairdressing clients as a forensic identity parade.
Exhibition Practice
Contemporary Art Society
Site-specific installation of ornate screens for WestWorks, White City Place — inspired by the Japanese-British Exhibition of 1910 that took place on the site.
Weird Science
Silkscreened lace patterns cast in jesmonite and held within welded steel grids. Group exhibition organised by Aniko Berman, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, 2015.
Psycho Topography
Twelve paintings on poured rubber canvases shaped from military boot treads — Pop abstraction examining design, psychology, and criminal justice.
Motion Paintings
Airbrushed jesmonite works referencing 18th-century V&A textile designs — surfaces that shift colour as the viewer moves around them.
Frieze Art Fair
New two and three-dimensional works for Frieze Focus inspired by Edo period Japanese Hikeshi firemen uniforms and Matoi flags.
If you are developing a project where this kind of collaboration might be relevant, O’Connell works with healthcare organisations, museums, universities, and arts institutions — particularly at the intersection of clinical practice, research, and visual art.
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