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John O’Connor

“Lenny,” 2019, Colored pencil and graphite on paper, 69 x 39.5 inches
This drawing is an offshoot of the Butter y works. Lenny was a character in one—the kitchen boss in a hospital. I actually knew a Lenny, who was my real life boss at the Noble Hospital kitchen in West eld, MA. He always played the lottery. In this drawing I was interested in the ways in which kids learn about how society operates through word-based math problems. My son, who was nine years old at the time I made this work, often brought home these types of problems, which are really convoluted and stretch their narratives to t the mathematical problems being studied. Because of this, the problems’ stories are often based in everyday life but are very elaborately concocted. In addition, these math problems presume a form of moral behavior based on fairness and equality, usually through the capitalist exchange of money and goods.
With this framework in mind, I decided to make my own math problem based on a working class person’s desire / need to purchase a symbol of the higher class. As Lenny plays the lottery and put his winnings towards the purchase of a new Corvette, his less apparent losses accumulate to negate these winnings. In the end, Lenny is at the same place he started—his labor was fruitless and overall class stagnation clear: a zero-sum game. Visually, I wanted the pattern to vibrate like a lottery ticket might and to push and pull you optically. Each lottery logo is from a different state, which, if connected, would form a map of states associated with the perils of the lottery as a means of class suppression. I think it’s funny but also sad, like tragic humor.