John O'Connor, sixth, seven, eight, (go) forth), and Twenty-Five: A Game, 2024, ceramic pigment on porcelain tile, MS 407 School of Technology, Arts and Research, Brooklyn ​

John O’Connor created two tile murals for the new School of Technology, Arts, and Research, Brooklyn. Each mural features curious, thought-provoking drawings the artist created by hand with graphite, colored pencil and collage. The drawings were photographed and then digitally printed with ceramic pigment on porcelain tile. The first mural, titled sixth, seven, eight, (go) forth, spans the inner lobby and the vestibule walls, at the threshold between inside and outside. It depicts a mirrored grid of letters that resembles a logic puzzle, like sudoku or crosswords. The letters spell out “sixth,” “seven,” and “eight”, referencing the grades of middle school, and “forth”, as in “go forth”, signifying the moving on to high school and beyond. The words in the grid shift incrementally letter by letter gradually morphing one grade into another before cycling back to the start. This shifting visual pattern captures what O’Connor describes as students’ “incremental growth and maturation” and “the gradual, almost imperceptible transformations (physical, intellectual, emotional) that occur during a student’s middle school years as they advance from childhood into young adulthood.”  

The second mural, Twenty-Five: A Game, installed on the adjacent corridor wall, shows a large meandering helix inside an outline resembling a point graph. It is intended as a representation of how students’ thoughts and actions are affected by their passage through each grade both physically and intellectually. Using imagery once again based on the middle school grades, O’Connor invented his own unique mathematical system to develop the form and structure of the composition.  Like a connect-the-dots game, this mural invites viewers to make connections and search for clues. Both murals feature sketches and partially erased notations and equations around the central images that show the artist’s thought process and calculations. O’Connor likens this to the significant milestones students reach throughout their time in middle school where “their notes, calculations, doodles, and diagrams eventually lead to moments of clarity and foundational development.”