Shaun O'Dell
Make Black
Make Black is the key print in a series of six editions created with Shaun O'Dell during his residency at Island Press in the fall of 2013. With the exception of Make Black which was conceived of just prior to his visit, all prints in the series were developed in collaboration with Sam Fox School students on a field trip to local St. Louis sites rich in American historical significance including Cahokia Mounds, the Gateway Arch, and the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
PROOF essay by Gretchen Wagner, curator and art historian
Shaun O’Dell’s collaboration with Island Press is a quintessential example of how the dialogue between a practicing artist and aspiring students can culminate in a meaningful and striking project. Invited by Island Press to spend time on-site in Saint Louis, Missouri, O’Dell immediately recognized the rich history of the surrounding landscape – a connection with place and nature which informs much of his work on paper, sculpture, and music of the past decade. Besides one print from the series, all were generated during visits with students to locations in the region including the Gateway Arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen, for the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; the confluence of the great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers; and the ruins of a prehistoric culture at the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. Asking the students to engage with the landscape directly, he instructed them to grind the printing matrix against the limestone surfaces characteristic of the area. The resulting scratches appear as sporadic marks in the compositions, which are balanced by solid fields of color.
O’Dell is very interested in oppositional forces which work against each other to create something new. The key to this series is the print Make Black, the only impression conceived beforehand, which combines impressions of separate colors to create a rectangle of black. He recognizes the paradox of black – the amalgamation of all colors, while defined as the absence of color reflected to the eye. Such contradiction is encapsulated within this project considering he allowed his vision to guide and then allowed the spontaneity of the situation to generate the final outcome. His series of prints, executed in a variety of methods as required, is the penultimate example of how creative voices, both veteran and fresh to the scene, can inform and respond to each other.
