BRIAN DONNELLY

BRIAN DONNELLY /// OBEDIENCE AND SAVAGERY

New show @ the Show and Tell Gallery, Toronto, running through November 28, 2010.

Brian views his work as a way to settle his own selfish whims, while exploring art and art culture through representational painting.

BRIAN DONNELLY embraced his current mode of creation through frustration and destructive behavior. These aspects in conjunction with a need to breathe new life into his 'otherwise stagnant' figurative practice led Brian to the actual 'spoiling' of paintings through the obliteration of elements. In doing so Brian began to think about his work's importance within art culture, and question whether or not vandalism is destructive, or procreative.

These ideas were amplified greatly with the reading of books like 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' and 'Frankenstein'. In both stories the title character acts on rather rash and selfish impulse, without considering consequence, merely working to please the ego. Looking deeper, both are tales of inhuman cruelty and deplorable scientific practice. It was these two books that set Brian searching for a way to apply that type of selfish cruelty to his primarily visual medium.

The aim became not to recreate works based on fiction, but to create his own vision of cruelty. Modeling himself after the hap-hazard doctors of fiction, by substituting their scientific practice for his artistic practice, Brian has become a fierce and unforgiving editor of art; the antagonist of his own creations



☁ BRIAN DONNELLY
☁ BRIAN DONNELLY PREVIOUSLY ON LE ZÈBRE