Southeast Chapter ConferenceSpeakers

Michael O'Neill

Saturday, October 19, 2013 @ 3:30pm, UNCC Center City Building // 801 Computer Lab

GigaPan Workshop

Michael O'Neill was born in 1974, in Watford, England. After graduating with a B.A. in Psychology at Wake Forest, he worked as a freelance commercial photography assistant, architectural photographer and Instructor at The Light Factory in Charlotte, NC, before earning his MFA at New Mexico State University in 2007. His thesis project, " Gazing " consisted of large format pinhole photographs made during figure drawing sessions in his subjects homes. The photographs depict the relationship between photographer and subject, and explore the expectations of each in a ritualized exchange.His newest work consists of stitched panoramic images depicting the social loopholes through which people experience a view of the human body that is outside the bounds of polite western society. The cinematic images invite a narrative where the viewer is confronted with the arbitrary nature of these rules, and the way the body is commodified by being shielded from view. Michael's work has been exhibited in numerous group shows around the country, and has been exhibited in a solo exhibition at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. Michael is currently a full time instructor at the Art Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina.