Off The Cuff: Daniel O'Neill

Sept. 20, 2019

Our CCRI faculty and staff are a diverse group with many fascinating hobbies and interests that keep them busy during their free time off campus. Welcome to Off the Cuff. Every other week, we'll profile a member of our CCRI family to find out what makes them tick. Hopefully, their stories inspire others and help us develop new connections and friendships with our CCRI colleagues.

The first exhibit of the fall semester is currently open at the Knight Campus Art Gallery thanks to the efforts of Assistant Professor of Art and Director Daniel O’Neill, who has brought in renowned artist Susan Nichter to display her work on campus for the next month in an exhibit titled, "On Earth: Paintings & Cross Over Images."

This concept is nothing new to O'Neill, whose own work is on display everywhere from the Bronx to downtown Providence. A third-year professor at CCRI, O'Neill currently teaches Video Art and Digital Art, Introduction to Visual Arts, Fine Arts Seminar, Drawing, and 4D Animation & Design. He painted a mural on the exterior of Classical High School in his hometown of Providence and also has elaborate visual displays housed in office buildings in Italy and college campuses in Philadelphia.

Growing up in a family of artists, O'Neill understandably navigated toward the genre at an early age and is now sharing his perspective with CCRI students interested in various arts, whether it's landscape painting or digital design. This week, we dive a little deeper into the mind of one of our most fascinating faculty members to find out where he gets his inspiration from in addition to his body of work at the Bronx Zoo.

Your father also taught art and you have siblings in the field as well. How big of an influence was that on your career choice?

I have been drawing and painting since I remember. Making art and music, meeting artists and going to see art was part of growing up in my family. My whole family works in art and education. My brother is sound engineer for network TV, one sister is an artist and art professor like myself, and another sister is a Montessori teacher and administrator. My dad has made documentaries around the world and teaches film. My mom founded and ran a Montessori school. I have served on the Board of this school; it has an integrated curriculum, meaning that the entire school studies many aspects of a certain culture at a time. For example, if the school is studying ancient Greece, for science lessons they may study the geography and geology of islands, the engineering of early maritime navigation, and the plants and animals of their environment. I would love to find ways to replicate parts of this holistic way of teaching here at CCRI. One reason that I enjoy teaching Foundation (the intro levels of art courses) is that I am very interested in where art intersects with other areas. At the Bronx Zoo, I worked at the intersection of art and biology, and in Rome I worked at the intersection of art and history. Art can be a means for communicating, a perspective on life, and a way of creating ideas and solutions that can be used in any area. Education is important when thinking about art’s intersection with other fields. I want to replicate the art and education-centered environment that I grew up with in my own family now.

When specifically were you in Rome and what was your biggest takeaway from your time there?

I lived in Rome from 2008 to 2012. The layers of history are clearly visible, how each culture borrowed from what came before it, from Etruscan to ancient Roman, early Christian, Renaissance and into modern times. The basement of a church in Rome is often a roman temple or mint, that was used as the foundation. You can see history as a continuum and the word “new” doesn’t mean as much. The historical center of Rome has amazing public spaces, it has a pedestrian scale and it’s an adventure to explore on foot. Most Italians I met were friendly and eager to talk about the similarities and differences between our cultures. In daily life there was a focus on spending time with friends, cooking and eating together, being outside, and heathy debate – being able to contest ideas and opinions without acrimony.  My first job there was helping to manage RISD’s European Honor’s program there, then I worked as Studio Director to American artist Joseph Kosuth. I was lucky to have work when many people my age then were unemployed, and, unfortunately, I don’t think it’s much better now. I did meet a lot of people my age who were committed to turning unused or abandoned historic spaces in to contemporary art and culture centers.

Which exhibits did you play a part in designing at the Bronx Zoo?

In Zoo Exhibit Design there are many competing needs; of the animals, for safety and stimulation, and of the public, for education and entertainment. I enjoyed the role of artist at the zoo, where my work was informed by input from scientists, and where the exhibits my team created were home to animals and on display for many visitors. I was on the team that designed and built the Madagascar Exhibits, which opened in 2008. The design included planting many Octopus Trees, which have tall, spiny stalks like a very thin saguaro cactus. In the wild, these grow very tall, fall over, and sprout more stalks out the side. In the constrained environment of an indoor zoo exhibit, it was not possible to allow these plants to fall over as space was limited. I designed tall steel poles to hold up the Octopus Trees. I painted a pattern on the poles that made them look just like an Octopus Tree covered in spines, and subtly bent the poles so they blended in with the Octopus Trees. A few years later when I visited the zoo, most of the Octopus Trees were gone, and what was left was a forest of my painted and bent steel poles, and the lemurs were jumping around and playing on them. The poles looked just like a forest of Octopus Trees. I also designed a fiberglass deer skull on a steel armature, which was displayed on the Cougar Exhibit and had to be strong enough that the cougars could not tear it apart.

How would you best describe your style of art to someone who is not as familiar with the genre?

I have worked in different genres. I can speak to my motivations. One is to make art that is specific to where it is displayed. Murals, my Abacus installations, and many of my video installations are designed for their site. I enjoy working with the dimensions of a site, painting a mural that reacts to the proportions of a building. This creates a subtler message, a feeling that these creations are part of their context. I like to create simulations. The video installations often show life size people projected onto a space.

What achievement in art are you most proud of?

In 2014 and 2015 I did a series of video installations in New York, Philadelphia, and Providence. Several of them were outdoors. I enjoy creating artwork that is out in public, where it can be seen by people who are not expecting to see art or looking for art. In 2012, I began a series of large scale paper sculptures called Abacus, and in 2016 I was invited to create an enormous version of this project, over 100 feet long, at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, MA.

We would love to hear your story, too! Email us at [email protected] if you’d like to be featured in a future edition of “Off the Cuff” or want to nominate a co-worker.

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