About
I am a monkey flying a spaceship and these are video streams of consciousness. The process is deep personal alignment between machine, material, and moment.
“I consider my videos more akin to poetry and painting, than to film, TV or Art Video.
I appropriate samples from disparate media sources. I re-purpose, re-contextualize, effect, alter, and intuitively weave these constructions into the dreams an old sentient TV might have. I think somewhere out there, in a forgotten store in a Strip Mall Ghost Town, sitting on a grey, dusty shelf in the farthest back of all the backrooms, there is an exhausted old analog TV set, dreaming alone as it’s fading light flickers.”
— Donald O’Finn
My Process
Ever since 1982, my process has been working with 2 VCRs. This was before the internet and before my introduction to any editing software. The inherent limitations of TVCR tech lent themselves to beautiful accidents, brilliant errors, juxtapositions, edits, and accidents, all revealing strange idiosyncratic and archetypal relationships and narratives never consciously intended.
In 2003, I took all I had learned and all the material I had compiled and stepped into the world of digital software. Having never taken a film class or had any lessons with any editing software, I became a monkey flying a spaceship.
A New Form of Art
Long before the term “mashup” was invented, and long before new tech democratized and popularized appropriation and repurposing media, I was already trying to make art from it all. I always loved the TV of my childhood — the 60s and 70s. I developed a love of old movies as well as a love of VHS recordings and their distortions, degradations, and grainy imagery of that low-res, lo-def TV era. That old source material still comprises the bulk of my imagery.
All my years and degrees as an artist have given me a great distaste for “art.” Generally, I don’t try to impose anything on anything, letting stuff fall as it may until I sense a forming of concoctions, a growing magnetism between images and actions — until it is near what I intuit is its conclusion.
I see my process as instinctual, culled from a lifetime of making, considering, and viewing various kinds of art. Almost as if I was feeding on the nipple of television and cultural commercialization. I’ve spent many years writing, thinking, and making art.
My Background
From the unfinished novels written as a depressive and withdrawn child to the videos I create now as an artist, all that was learned from a stint in the Army’s Air Cavalry Unit (made famous with Robert Duval’s character in Apocalypse Now), an associate degree while working as a custom airbrush artist (with an award-winning Land Cruiser in the 1980 Auto-Rama), and a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the San Francisco Art Institute while working as a caricature artist at the Fisherman’s Warf.
I wouldn’t be the artist I am today without the countless museum and gallery hours, the 10 years I spent as an obsessive and committed figure painter, and the 20 years I worked as a bar manager, visionary, bar and club owner, interior decorator and designer, booking agent, and gallery curator for the famous Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in Brooklyn, NY.
Source Material
My source material is infomercials, reality TV, monster movies, foreign oddities, and silent films, which are common to cable access. This material can’t help but speak volumes about the communal experience of TV, our culture, and the commodification of hopes, dreams, and lies. Each piece is unique, but there are often recurring devices, icons, and narratives.
Over the years, I have developed a vocabulary of personal iconographies like brutes and babes, beauties and beasts, and children. It is a dancing celebration of destruction and construction, of doors, hands, nudes, death, betrayal, regret, and more.
Personal Expression
Every video I create seems to be a repository of everything personal to me—all my knowledge, instincts, and intuition. Consistent themes of death, consumption, obsession, sex, beauty, repulsion, childhood anxiety, avarice, and greed appear and reappear over and over.
I actually think of myself as a sort of outsider artist, existing outside of mainstream art and traditional cultural influences. My influences have been many; most notable are painting, music videos, movie trailers, and—in recent years— my own private visceral instincts. Perhaps my greatest motivation is to make something that surprises me.
My paintings and short stories never made me laugh. However, my videos always surprise me and always make me feel very happy and sad.
Screenings of My Work
My videos have been in exhibitions nationally and internationally. They have also been screened at various film festivals, cult venues, and obscure caves. Most notably, my work has been shown at the Hirshhorn Museum of Art in Washington DC and at Lincoln Center and the Anthology Film Archives in New York City (performing with the multimedia audio-visual collective known as rev.99).
NY Video Artist Donald O’Finn at the “Remix, Reshoot, Research” exhibition held in the Tremaine Gallery. Hotchkiss School. CT. 2016.
Donald O’Finn has an M.F.A. in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. Donald O’Finn’s videos have been exhibited both nationally and internationally, screened at various film festivals and cult venues throughout the U.S. and Europe. Notably his work has been shown at the Hirshhorn Museum of Art in Washington D.C., at the Lincoln Center NYC and at the Anthology Film Archives NYC (performing with the multi-media audio-visual collective known as rev.99).
Donald O’Finn is a co-owner at Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in Brooklyn NY where his work shows on multiple monitors, 365 – noon ’til 4am.
O'Finn WORDS
I started making appropriated videos way back in 1982, and over the many years I have developed a vocabulary of personal iconography — Brutes and Babes, Beauty and the Beast, the Child, Dancing, Destruction, doors, hands, nudes, death, betrayal and regret, etc. Of course, each piece is unique, but here are the recurring devices, icons and narratives throughout. The source material is common to cable access tv, infomercials, reality TV, monster movies and more.
Before the internet and my introduction to editing software, my original process was using just 2 VCR’s. The limitations that this created lent themselves to beautiful accidents and brilliant errors. Long before the term ‘mash up’ was invented, and long before new tech democratized and popularized the process, I was making art from cross editing two VCR’s. I developed a love of VHS, its distortion and degradation, and the ‘grain’ of that age. I still mostly use that old source material.
Generally, I don’t try to impose anything on anything, letting stuff fall as it will, until I begin to sense connections, a growing magnetism between images and actions, until it is near what I intuit is its conclusion. It’s an instinctual process from a lifetime of making, considering and viewing art of various kinds, a lifetime of feeding on the nipple of television and cultural commercialization.
All the years spent writing, thinking and making art — from the unfinished novel written as a depressive and withdrawn child, to all that was learned from a stint in the Army’s ‘Air Cavalry’ unit; from an Associates degree in Psychology from the American River College in Sacramento, California to working as a custom airbrush artist (peaking with an award-winning Land Cruiser in the 1980 Auto-Rama.) And from a Master’s Degree in fine art from the San Francisco Art Institute while working as a caricature artist at Fisherman’s Warf. All that was absorbed in the countless museums and gallery hours and the 10 years as an obsessive and committed figure painter. The 20 years as a bar manager, visionary, owner, interior decorator and designer, booking agent and gallery curator for the famous Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in Brooklyn, NY.
Each video piece seems to be a repository of everything personal, all my knowledge, my instincts and intuition. Consistent themes of death, consumption and obsession, sex, beauty, repulsion, childhood, anxiety, avarice, greed (all the Sins and more), monsters, doors, graves, food… It starts with obtaining something that has an unfamiliar center, a profundity of beauty, or something with an oddity. They are almost without exception things that last only a moment, a blink of time, the closing of a door, the turning back of a bed sheet, perhaps a reaction on the face of an unfamiliar actor.
Of course the source material can’t help but speak about the communal experience of TV, and of our culture, our commodification, our hopes, dreams and lies. Perhaps my greatest motivation is to make something that surprises me. My paintings and my short stories never made me laugh. The video works often make me laugh and they can also make me very sad. They seem a far more direct route to my human condition.
I consider my videos more akin to poetry and painting, than to Film, TV or Art Video. I appropriate samples from disparate media sources. I re-purpose, re-contextualize, alter and weave these constructions into the dreams a sentient television might have.
Rev.99
The Multi-Media Collective
For years I participated in live video jams with the joyful multi-media collective rev.99, run by video artist/poet/musician 99 Hooker. Providing roll footage and running a video mixing board, doing live multi-channel performances, importing into the projected material not only our usual bombardment of brilliant footage provided by media archivist Brother Russell Scholl, myself, 99 Hooker and a cast of others, but also accompanied by live music performances by some of NYC’s best musicians, poets and audio artists working with our improvised performance.
Aside from our mythic Hirshhorn Museum gig in 2005, The Rev.99 performance I recall best was in 2003 in the Backroom of Freddy’s in Brooklyn, on the night of George Bush’s “Shock and Awe!” We ran multiple VCRs, live cameras ,mixing boards and effects generators. That particular night we added additional footage from a micro camera attached to the collar of my beloved dog Xena — importing live footage of customers’ laps and legs as she circumnavigated the busy bar searching for Pizza and Love, and finally returning back to the room where we were performing. Into that night’s amazing mix, we also imported live TV news broadcasts of the “Shock and Awe” bombardment along with its obligatory logos, graphic branding and play-by-play commentary. The dog’s eye view camera and the TV News War mixed together with our typically untypical roll footage (you know, Britney Spears, porn, old TV commercials, obscure flicks, abstraction, etc., accompanied by a unifying back beat of imported noise, with hits of live spoken word, alp horn, clarinet, and news commentary) …and believe it or not, it all made perfect sense! We were so busy running live footage and making art we never recorded any of the performances – Stupid artists.
Donald in Numbers
Education
1982 – AA Psychology: American River College. Sa. CA.
1987 – BFA Painting: San Francisco Art Institute. SF, CA.
1989 – MFA Painting: San Francisco Art Institute. SF, CA.
Solo Exhibitions
2008 – Projections: Botanica. Brklyn, NY.
2005 – Retrospective: Gorilla Space. Brklyn, NY
1990 – Big Figure: Foster Goldstrom Gallery. NY, NY.
1989 – SoloShow. Joseph Chowning Gallery. SF, CA.
1988 – O’Finn: Diego Rivera Gallery. San Francisco Art Institute. SF, CA.
Selected Exhibitions and Screenings
2024 – Raging Ball of Fury, Experiments in Cinema: Guild Theater. Albuquerque, NM.
2024 – Improvising Stan Brakhage’s Art Lectures: Minicine? Salon. Shreveport, LA.
2023 – The Guild Theater. Alburquerque, NM.
2023 – Golden Saguaro: Becker. Tuscon, AZ.
2023 – h9sh: – FEED. Erie, PA.
2023 – Other Cinema. San Francisco, CA.
2023 – Shape Shifters Cinema. Oakland, CA.
2023 – Wonderville. Brklyn, NY.
2022 – h9sh: – FEED. Erie, PA.
2022 – Hayfork. Northern Delights, CA.
2022 – Other Cinema. San Francisco, CA.
2022 – House Show. Pasadena, CA.
2021 – The Golden Saguaro. Tuscon, AZ.
2021 – Guild Theater. Albuquerque, NM.
2021 – No Name Cinema. Santa Fe, NM.
2020 – Minicine. Shreveport, LA.
2020 – Zeitgeist Theater. New Orleans, LA.
2019 – Lodge Screening: The Lodge. Chester, NY.
2019 – Art Slope. Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY.
2018 – Live Video Performance / Screening. Muti media Art Group rev.99. Brklyn, NY.
2018 – Reanimatrix: rev.99, Other Cinema. SF, Ca.
2017 – Live Video Performance / Screening. Muti media Art Group rev.99. NY, NY.
2016 – Remix, Reshoot, Research: Tremaine Gallery, Hotchkiss. Lakeville, Con.
2016 – Live Video Performance / Screening. Muti media Art Group rev.99. Brklyn, NY.
2015 – Screenings, Art Slope Festival. Park Slope Brklyn, NY.
2014 – Live Video Performance / Screening. Muti media Art Group rev.99. Brklyn, NY.
2013 – Live Video Performance / Screening Footage. Muti media Art Group rev.99. NY, NY.
2013 – Screening / Lecture. Revisionaries: O’Finn – Re-Mixalot. Art Center. Troy, NY
2012 – ComVideo: Apexart, NY, NY.
2011 – 2018 Window & building exterior screening, Brklyn, NY.
2011 – Busan International Film Festival: Bandee Busan, Korea.
2011 – GLOW: Donald O’Finn’s “Repurposed Video” Visions. Z-Bar. Berlin, Germany.
2010 – PI Festival: National Museum of Art. Szczecin, Poland.
2010 – Portuguese Cine-theatre Zero-Film: Traveling Art project throughout Portugal.
2009 – Manipulated image: The Complex Science and Art. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
2009 – Dokument Art: 18 Festival. Szczecin, Poland.
2008 – Luminous Flux: Galapagos Art Space. Brklyn, NY.
2008 – Botanica Exhibition Space. Red Hook, Brklyn, NY.
2007 – Media Show: Hangar 1018. LA, CA.
2006 – Improvised Media: Live Performance (rev.99). Monkey Town. Williamsburg, N.Y.
2005 – Cosmic: Live Performance (rev.99) The Hirshhorn Museum of Art. Wa, DC.
2005 – Improvised History: (rev.99) Anthology Film Archives, NY, NY.
2005 – Performance: (rev.99) Bowery Ballroom, NY, NY.
2005 – Reanimatrix: (rev.99) Other Cinema. SF, Ca.
2005 – Performance: (rev.99) Anthology Film Archives. NY, NY.
2005 – Special Screenings: Brklyn Underground Film Festival. Brklyn, NY.
2004 – Selected series: The Mass College of Art. Boston, MA.
2004 – Performance: (rev.99) Anthology Film Archives. NY, NY.
2003 – Up in Arms: Parkers Box Art Gallery. NY, NY.
2001 – Screening: Galapagos Art Space. Brklyn, N.Y.
2000 – Solo Show: The White Room: Brklyn, NY.
1998 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Alan Stone Gallery. NY, NY.
1996 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Alan Stone Gallery. NY, NY.
1995 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Alan Stone Gallery. NY, NY.
1994 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Alan Stone Gallery. NY, NY.
1993 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Alan Stone Gallery. NY, NY.
1991 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition: Foster Goldstrom Gallery. NY, NY.
1990 – Solo Show: Foster Goldstrom Gallery. NY, NY.
1988 – Gallery Artist’s Exhibition. Art Rental, MOMA. SF, Ca.
1987 – MFA Show: S.F. Art Institute, Diego Rivera Gallery. SF, Ca.
1986 – Student Show: S.F. Art Institute, Diego Rivera Gallery. SF, Ca.
1985 – Group Show: S.F. Art Institute, Diego Rivera Gallery. SF, Ca.
1983 – BFA Show: S.F. Art Institute, Diego Rivera Gallery. SF, Ca.
1982 – Undergraduate Show: S.F. Art Institute, Diego Rivera Gallery. SF, Ca.