Colleen O'Neal

Colleen Gutwein O’Neal is a photographer and curator from the Northeastern United States. O’Neal’s work is focused on the human experience through community engagement. Colleen works primarily in a documentary photography style as a way to build lasting relationships with her community. In her most recent longterm work, The Newark Artists Photo Documentary Project, O’Neal pays tribute to, and immortalizes through photographs, 90 plus artists within the Newark arts community. The project acknowledges the industrial and photographic history of Newark by incorporating the use of film cameras manufactured in the city in the 1940s. A natural extension to her photographic work, O’Neal curates contemporary exhibitions inspired by the artists she has built relationships with. Her curatorial approach is in collaboration with the artists, exploring socially conscious themes and providing space for conceptual and experimental works. O’Neal is an Adjunct Professor of Photography and Contemporary Art at Rutgers University Newark, a volunteer at Index Art Center, and Community Partner at Shine Portrait Studio. Colleen has been exhibiting work since 2004, printed work has been published in Hycide and Nowhere magazines. Her book, The Camera I Always Wanted, one of five books compiled into the Plume House of Prayer Series, has been acquired by the Newark Public Library and the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.