ARTIST STATEMENT

I identify as a Mixed Media Artist with a penchant for Encaustic. The versatility of the wax medium gives me a creative avenue for all feeling, and an adaptability I find necessary in art, as in life. Many of my pieces are hand pulled wax and pigment monotypes on fine Japanese Kozo papers collaged to panel, some with over painting of encaustic layers. Other pieces include acrylic mixed-media works on canvas and folded works, collage and sculpture/installation... houses and homes...scripts, stories that don't meet expectation...fractured flat colour-field works.

In my most recent works the layering, mark making, cutting, tearing, folding, attaching, building and over-painting of these final images, all act as metaphor for medical procedures, personal body interference, loss of identity, grief and obstacle and story telling.

There is a state of "off-ness" that I identify in my work, a slight discomfort.  its often initially viewed as subdued or calm painted and printed work, even meditative in its initial appearance, which belies what I identify as its somewhat "difficult ambience" the calm is a mask to all the layers underneath.

'When all your walls have shifted... its time to rebuild!'  Hidden Out Loud - Niamh O'Connor. 

ARTIST BIO

NIAMH O’CONNOR is a visual artist from North County Dublin living and working in Monaghan. Her work carries the weight of a thousand stories inspired as she is by all about her, including housing, homelessness, health and recovery and very often addressing issues of personal and social history.

Niamh has exhibited across Ireland and beyond. Of note are her works for her solo exhibitions “A Ballast Full of Hope” Ma rIket House Monaghan, and 'hidden...OUT LOUD' addressing the reformation and idea of self when diagnosed with hidden illness, recently shown at the Solas Art Gallery Ballinamore,Co. Leitrim. Sept/Oct 2017 and The Markethouse Gallery/County Arts Office Gallery, Monaghan Town November 2017.

Niamh's works are held in private collections across Ireland, Europe and the US. 
​All works shown, unless otherwise stated, are available for exhibition and sale. Commissions welcome.

Recent Press: