John J. O'Connor   You Can't Win, 2007 Graphite, colored pencil, acrylic on paper, 77.5 x 53.75 inches   I built this work from the bottom to the top. In doing so, I invented ways of translating many different types of information about the lottery – social commentary, winning numbers, losing predictions, odds of winning, etc.– into forms, shapes and patterns. My process was additive, incremental and inconsistent. The main conceptual / information-based layers of the work, from bottom to top, are: 1. Incorrect predictions of winning lottery numbers, which I translated into words via a simple system (each number corresponded to a letter – A=1, B=2, etc) 2. Purely random numbers (I translated them into numbers of shapes and patterns, colors, etc.) 3. Representations of religious symbols / crosses – signs of faith 4. Various written descriptions of the social implications of the lottery as described by various sociologists 5. Actual winning numbers for NY lottery 6. Average percentage chance of winning the lottery I thought of the whole thing as my building / drawing of a very unstable tower of sorts, based on the idea and implications of the lottery as a mechanism of social change. —John O'Connor
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