A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Selfie of Molly O'Connell, an adult person with a fair skin tone, wearing a flamboyant collar.

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Molly Colleen O'Connell

Lecturer

she/they

Contact

Bio

MCO is an interdisciplinary artist, cartoonist, comics historian, writer, educator, amateur clown, and haunter. 

Awards

Maison des auteurs residency, Trailer Blaze Residency, Dash Grant

Publications

Who’s Afraid of a Florida Woman?, Colorama Books (Berlin); Peep Magazine, edited by Sammy Harkham, Braid Dead (LA); Difficult Loves, published by Domino Books; numerous self published works

Exhibitions

Exhibitions: No Role Models, Cleaner Gallery, Chicago, IL; NYABF Debut Book Trailers Screening, Hauser & Wirth, New York, NY; Marathon Art Show, Fantagraphics, Seattle, WA; Tree’s Company, Gridsport, Chicago, IL; Very Disco, Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, IL; Neo Tang, Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago, IL; Ballroom mural (extant); Color Club, Chicago, IL; Chicago Comics 1960 – Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Why Do Spiders Drink From My Mouth While I’m Sleeping? (Solo), Julius Caesar

Collections: John M Flaxman library at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland 

Portfolio

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Investigate visual storytelling and drawing strategies through the contemporary art forms of comics and graphic novels. Explore a variety of illustrative approaches, such as writing, storyboarding, penciling, and inking/coloring. Building on this foundation, students learn research methods to develop ideas and produce projects examining narrative structures, material choices, and integrating text and image. Regular critiques, visits to the Art Institute of Chicago, and exposure to contemporary artists, illustrators, and designers supplement the studio experience. Previous drawing experience is helpful but not required.

Class Number

2297

Credits

1

Description

Humorous pictures since their inception have been imperative for artists to critique authority, to encourage empathy, and to process grief and grievances. Comics burlesque reality to emphasize the absurdity and flaws found in culture. Like all comedic tools, they have also been used to express prejudice or bias lurking in 'polite society'. We will closely read and discuss the works of artists such as Rodolphe Töpffer, Marie Duval, Nicole Hollander, Basil Wolverton, Charles Johnson, Ernie Bushmiller, Shary Flenniken, Julie Doucet, Lisa Hanawalt, Ben Passmore, Walter Scott, Aisha Franz, and Jessica Campbell among others. We will begin with analogue tools and sharpened wits to create single panel gags and strips, working up to short form narratives.

Class Number

1832

Credits

3

Description

A membrane is a thin, typically planar structure or material that separates two environments, be those physical, molecular, or cultural. This class investigates this transitional space, and the potential for movement and transgression through it. Membrane structures are developed as surfaces, forms, and spatial relationships through techniques like chenille quilting, free motion sewing with a soluble membrane, nuno felting, papermaking in 2D and 3D, resist wax dyeing (batik), dip and wick dyeing, fabric burnout (devore) through silkscreening, protein/cellulose combination dyeing, and jacquard crocheting.

Readings on conceptual permeability will include Jean Baudrillard?s ?Simulacra and Simulations?, Andrew Ballantyne?s ?Remaking the Self in Heterotopia?, Homi K. Bhabha?s ?On `hybridity? and `moving beyond??, and Roger Cardinal?s ?Secrecy?.

Techniques will be divided into three major projects with written statements. This course also requires artist and reading presentations.

Class Number

1592

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

2242

Credits

3