Shannon O’Neill: BEAT ONE

June 5 - July 13, 2025

Opening June 5, 2025, 6-8pm

The Empty Circle presents BEAT ONE, a solo exhibition of new ceramic works by New York-based artist, Shannon O’Neill. Known for her longstanding work in improvisational comedy, O’Neill brings the same spirit of spontaneity, play, and transformation to her studio practice. In BEAT ONE, she lets the process lead, creating a series of whimsical, irreverent ceramic forms that embrace unpredictability and delight in failure.

According to the artist, “Nothing in the exhibition was pre-planned.” Each vessel and sculpture emerged in the moment: a cylinder thrown on the wheel suddenly evokes a jawline, a fin, or a flailing arm, prompting O’Neill to hand-build appendages and modify surfaces in vases with precarious mouths, hybrid creatures that straddle the functional and the fantastical.

To O’Neill, improvisation is not just a method but a mindset. She treats clay as a collaborator, responding to its movements, its quirks, its suggestions. All of the works in BEAT ONE are hand-built and wheel-thrown in stoneware, then glazed in vibrant, often unexpected color combinations. O’Neill treats glaze like paint, using it to highlight movement, mood, and absurdity, turning each object into a character of its own.

In Tired Boy (2025), a creature’s lower half perches gently on a polka-dotted stool, its torso mysteriously absent. The bowl-like body slouches with endearing resignation. Despite its clear dismemberment, the figure exudes calm, leaving the viewer to wonder: “What happened here, and why does it feel so okay?”

Other works like Nipple Vessel (2025), TUBES 1 (2024), TUBES 2 (2024), and TUBES 3 (2024), push the traditional vase form into ambiguous, almost alien territory. Glazed in earthy greens and browns with carved striations and punctured holes, these vessels appear both ancient and futuristic. Their surfaces mimic bark, scales, or sediment, connecting them visually to the natural world. Photographed among grass, stone, and brick, the sculptures embrace their connection to the elements. They squat, lean, and peer – adding a touch of wild strangeness to the everyday.

While humor anchors the exhibition, BEAT ONE is ultimately about freedom – the freedom to follow instincts, make mistakes, and let material guide meaning. The forms may be absurd, even grotesque, but they pulse with intention and presence. In O’Neill’s hands, ceramics become a reflection of improvisation in action: raw, responsive, and radically alive.

About the Artist

Shannon O’Neill has been living in NYC for 25 years. She is an actor, improviser, and most recently, a ceramicist. You can see her perform live comedy at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre as well as every Sunday night at Caveat Theatre in RaaaatScraps, an improv show that she has produced for 4 years to a cult following. She guest-starred on TV shows like Broad City, High Maintenance and The Other Two. She co-hosted The Chris Gethard Show.

She started playing with clay in high school and took one class in college. Then two decades later in 2022, she walked into The Potters Wheel in Kew Gardens and has not stopped creating with clay since.

She lives in Queens with her dog Dunkin and ghost dogs Luz, Rico & Satch. Besides comedy and ceramics, she loves basketball, is a season ticket holder of The New York Liberty and loves making fart jokes with her smoke show girlfriend. This is her first solo show, and she is fucking psyched about it.

The gallery is open by appointment only.

Please contact matt@emptycirclespace.com for inquiries, images and requests.