Gwen O'Neil

Gwen O’Neil (b. 1992, New York, NY, US) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In 2015, she earned a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design.

O’Neil’s distinctive process consists of the artist intuitively, yet methodically, dabbing fluctuating pigments on stained canvas, bringing forth dynamic marks that swirl, dance, and crash across the surface. Combining the soak-stain approach of Helen Frankenthaler with the energetic, atomized brushwork of Pointillists like Seurat, Pissarro, and Signac, O’Neil’s canvases draw inspiration from the landscapes that have shaped her life and the forces that define them. 

Through her abstracted scenes, O’Neil evokes both the cosmic and the everyday, from the ever-shifting sky to the spiraling geometry of shells and the hypnotic formations of migrating starlings. Calling to mind the color theory of the Neo-Impressionists, while also engaging with the heritage of the Light and Space movement and the environmentalism of the Hudson River School, the artist’s work is driven by a longstanding fascination with color, light, and atmosphere.

In an era saturated with digitally mediated images, O’Neil’s paintings provide a lush visual respite, prompting the viewer to contemplate both the grandiosity and the spectacular minutiae of existence.