An Amazing Artist...

Last month I was privileged to be able to interview an amazing artist. Clare O’Neill. Her artwork is contemporary and unique and beautiful. Her current series “Below the Surface” has a wonderful touch and elegance of old Hollywood. Spontaneous, elegant and full of life they feature the Hollywood glamour of old in black dress, stilettos and stockings.

The images were shot underwater allowing Clare mere seconds to capture a pose before the water pulled the image away forever. The images are all personal to Clare as they explore the past & future and vulnerability and the unbalance we feel in the changes. In Clare’s case the loss of her mother. Many of the dresses used were her mothers. The images are printed on to tissue paper in multiple pieces and are embedded within layers of hot beeswax and pigments to create beautiful textural piece.  To quote Clare

“Contemporary Photo Encaustic is where photography meets hot beeswax, pigments, texture and playfulness. I wish there was another term for it. Photo encaustic sounds so harsh. En-kaw-stick. It sounds hazardous and industrial. But au contraire. The translucency of the wax and the way the light draws you in is remarkable, seductive, and intoxicating”

The use of her rich imagery, bold strokes and the added playful drips allow the paintings to create added spontaneity and motion.

Clare has some amazing original paintings you can find here and you can even purchase signed fine art prints in a variety of sizes. While you can buy many of the prints each original mixed media masterpiece is a one off.

Clare O’Neill fell in love with the luminosity of using beeswax and decided that she wanted to incorporate this into her artwork. A tactile person this allows Clare to work hands on and to create these stunning textures on her paintings. The underwater images – my favourite in her range were inspired by the flow of the material. The clothing belonged to her mother who had recently passed and Clare wanted to create an otherworldly effect with them. Highlighted in the floatation of each dress in the image. They are exquisite and ethereal and just simply breath taking!