Francis O’Donnell is the Photography & Digital Artist Spotlight winning artist for the month of April 2021. Francis is an award-winning photographer based in Richmond, Virginia, USA.
Francis’s Solo Art Exhibition will be featured on the website for the month of April 2021. The gallery will promote Francis and his work on the Fusion Art website, individual online press releases to hundreds of outlets, email blasts to over 5,500+ buyers, collectors, galleries and art professionals, in online event calendars, art news websites and through the gallery’s extensive social media outlets. Fusion Art’s objective is to promote the Artist Spotlight winning artists, worldwide, to art professionals, gallerists, collectors and buyers.
Please read Francis’ Artist Biography below as he describes his history and inspiration in his own words. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see his exhibition.
If you are interested in purchasing any of these award-winning pieces, or to see more of Francis’ work, please visit his Facebook page.
Also, please visit Fusion Art’s YouTube Channel to see Francis’ Solo Art Exhibition Video.
Thank you to all the artists who participated in the Artist Spotlight competition and congratulations to Francis and the other Artist Spotlight winning artists.
Artist Biography
Francis O’Donnell is an artist, author, poet, photographer/filmmaker, and explorer. He is an alumnus of the School of Visual Arts in New York City, New York, where he earned a BFA in Media Arts and was studio assistant of world-renowned sculptor Joel Perlman. During this period, O’Donnell’s large-scale sculpture entitled ‘Pierian Muse’ (1982) was favorably reviewed in The New York Times. Francis contributed to the restoration of the Ludwig Mies van der Rohe house in Weston, Connecticut. A veteran of the United States Marine Corps, Mr. O’Donnell has traveled the world extensively, visiting over seventy countries, often participating in or leading research expeditions and archaeological digs. He is a member of the New York Explorers Club, The Adventurers Club of Chicago.
His Emmy nominated PBS documentary, In the Footsteps of Marco Polo, as well as the companion book, both produced and written by him, chronicles his historic two-year, twenty-five-thousand-mile journey, retracing the Venetian merchant’s 13th-century Travels along the fabled Silk Road. (See website: www.wliw.org/marcopolo) The director’s cut debuted at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He has lectured on his experiences at The Smithsonian Society in Washington, D.C., The Philadelphia Geographical Society, and the Waldorf Astoria in NYC, as well as various colleges, schools, universities, clubs, libraries, and organizations across the country.
Currently, his fine art can be seen at galleries in and around Richmond, Virginia. He is a regular contributor to The Heretic Magazine, Ripcord Adventure Journal, and the scholarly blog China Mongols and the Silk Road. He has also written an article for Smithsonian Magazine entitled “Marco Polo’s Guide to Afghanistan.” His writing has been featured in The Walkabout Chronicles and the Pilgrimage Chronicles, both anthologies published by Sacred World Publishing.
In 2016 and 2017, Mr. O’Donnell was a guest speaker presenting aboard Celebrity Cruise Line vessels in Europe and Asia and will be sailing again with them in 2020. His art installation entitled ‘THE DEADLY TIDE’ (2017) ranked among the Top 25 in its category during ArtPrize #9 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where over 1400 artists from around the world took place in the competition. During the Spring of 2018, Mr. O’Donnell reprised his “THE DEADLY TIDE” installation for Earth Day with a different take on a theme. In 2018, he taught a course on Marco Polo and the Silk Road for the Christopher Wren Association at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. In 2018 – 9, Mr. ODonnell received the honor of a Presidential Scholarship to attend a summer workshop at the prestigious Anderson Ranch Art Center in Snowmass Co.
He is currently finishing up several writing projects due to be published in 2021, as well as continuing his creative endeavors in the fields of painting and photography.
