'Art and Mortality' Seminar

O'Donnell, Ron

Abstract

Ron O’Donnell’s photographs, vibrant and effervescent, daring and humorous, touch upon allegory and myth, identity and mortality. In each case he turns a spotlight upon the foibles of human life. His images speak of love and loss, folly and foolishness, the decadent and the demoralised; in fact, the whole chimera of contemporary caprice. In this, he is a modern Bosch, or Brueghel, exploding the carnival excess of modern life. His photographs provoke laughter and sorrow in equal measure; a revelation hidden inside a comic moment. For his In Memoriam lecture Ron will discuss these themes, particularly in relation to his ‘Day of the Dead’ series created after a Leverhulme Trust funded research trip to Mexico City and his installation of ‘Day of the Dead’ artefacts for the National Museum of Scotland in 2002.

Citation

O'Donnell, R. (2014, March). 'Art and Mortality' Seminar. Presented at In Memoriam, The Royal Society Edinburgh, Edinburgh

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: In Memoriam
• Start Date: Mar 8, 2014
• Deposit Date: Apr 21, 2021
• Keywords: Memoriam, Day of the Dead
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2759925
• Related Public URLs: https://www.rse.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/In-Memoriam.pdf