Jack O’Meara
Our October Maker…
Jack O’Meara is a visual artist and a 2023 of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. His work centres around ideas of Irishness, word play, traditions and humor with textiles being the primary medium.
I’ve gotten to know his work over the last year and have found a joyous comfort in his outlook on the art field and his wonderous creations.
Jack’s journey to textiles definitely wasn’t linear as in his final year of school he was torn between music, food and art.
‘‘I have to pick something to do for the rest of my life - interesting. I like music, I like food and I like art. At that point art had gone on the back burner and I thought I don’t want to be a music teacher and I don’t want to be struggling, worrying about being a musician so I ended up being an artist which is kind of worse.’’
From there he discovered the National College of Art and Design and saw it as a chance for a new adventure. With his first attempt at the portfolio submission not going to plan he applied for a PLC course which ended up being a pivotal time for him in getting the opportunity to try all kinds of mediums. When the chance came around to reapply for NCAD his focus was on jewellery, which coincidentally is grouped with textiles for scoring, and he got in.
‘‘I messed around a lot in first year, didn’t really try, didn’t really put any effort in. Then I started to be really sad because I was getting horrible grades. But I was too scared to try at the idea of failing. It’s a weird fake armour.’’
He went into NCAD with a desire to focus on fine art but design kept chasing him and is actually the world he’s currently working in.
‘‘I just gravitated towards the textiles because it made me feel kind of like alt, like being a man who does textiles. It’s this textile underbelly like ther'e’s no respect for it, and it’s stupid and it’s a craft etc. As time has gone on it makes so much sense for me to be doing these things and especially to focus on embroidery because my practice is rooted in embroidery.’’
In hindsight he can see so many manifestations in his early work, with embroidery as a whole and what he does now. From drawing borders around everything in his PLC course, family history in textiles to drawing stitches that he now uses, shows it was all meant to be.
As he explored this world further the conflict between making and creating narrative began to rear its head. He was developing the necessary skills at a rapid rate which solidified his choice in textiles. But he wanted to make sure that they were at the highest level before embarking on intertwining a narrative.
‘‘I really enjoyed the making and I didn’t really care about a narrative too much. I understand that I need narrative but I didn’t want to slap one on for the sake of it. I purposely put intention into developing my skills, especially in textiles where skills are important and in terms of it not being respected with other fine art fields. I was like if people are going to make fun of my work they’re not going to be able to pick apart the craftsmanship, that’s for sure.’’
Going into third and fourth year he was able to carve out the space to see what stories he wanted to tell. Diving into word play, vernacular, themes around Irishness and personal experiences. We particularly bonded over our love of humor and how it can reframe something for the viewer.
‘‘I was thinking personal experience only gets you so far because there’s a point where you’re like oh poor you as a viewer, this effected you in a positive or negative way. But my friend was like no that doesn’t apply to you because your work stems from a personal place. That’s like the seed and then the flower that grows out of it is the relatability factor .’’
‘‘Using those themes to create a funny narrative with beautiful objects about something not great. It looks good, kind of funny but ultimately sad.’’
His course head, Helen McAllister said ‘we have a great respect for the beautiful object,’ which he tried to formulate his own information from. We both found that ‘the pretty’ can be sneered on and deemed as vapid or surface level.
‘‘But it can be layered and really nuanced you know because I find that people do ugly for the sake of ugly and it’s convenient that they don’t need to make it look good. It’s difficult to make something beautiful, you have it or you don’t.’’
Jack is the first non performance based maker I’ve spoken to and it was really refreshing seeing the endless similarities between the different art forms. Serving as a reminder that we all experience the same process whatever practice we choose.
‘‘Truly there’s links everywhere. If you’re a creative there’s a process or a wall you get stuck behind or whatever. It’s almost like there’s mandatory issues that you have to go through within yourself or the community.’’
There’s definitely a shift happening after being in an arts education for the last few years that requires an adjustment time. It calls for refinding your process and a new outlook in how to work within a fresh context.
‘‘It was such a crazy build up. It’s such a woah me thing to say wow my art college course was hard. But it was hard, hours and hours a day of being berated. It’s not like learning and reciting information, you’re recreating information from a historical or contemporary source and reinturpreting it. It has to be fresh and new and personal but detached and intricate but simple.’’
His course emphasised not only replicating something through a new medium but extrapulating an idea. Starting with drawing, mark making to capture the mood, movement or texture, manipulating with paper and then moving onto fabrics. He is currently figuring out what he wants his process to be after being molded a certain way by an institution. His pattern generally follows:
Drawing/photography
Mark making
Stitching
Deciding to go 2D or 3D with the subject
‘‘I think research is just incredibly important. The works that I hate are the works that are shallow and unfounded, unless it’s done in spite of research.’’
In terms of a work that he continuously returns to he is ever struck by Helen McAllister, as she exemplifies what he wants his work to be - highly ornate, visually interesting with visible physical manifestations of time. Embroidery has the power to encapsulate all of this. She focuses on shoes, the ideas of pairs, gender that comes with that which feeds into the wordplay and double entendres that fuel him.
‘‘I was trying to use her as a guide to try and relate to my own practice. My own pillars for my practice. That’s something that’s quite helpful and it’s not something that I’ve quite figured out just yet. I’ve narrowed it down but it’s one of those things that you can’t narrow down too much because then you let nothing else in. You’ve pigeon holed yourself which is a horrifying prospect. The mind is so powerful that if you realise you’ve pigeon holed yourself it doubles down in panic.’’
Alongside juggling all the inner questions of your own practice and work, comes the daunting real working field where a thousand new questions begin to introduce themselves. Where to start when the possibilities are everything?
‘‘I’m not one of those people that get super existential about it all and is like - oh god what have I done! But I do get these smaller moments or short bursts of - you’re not really gonna be a fine artist, you’re not really gonna be a visual artist, why would you sign yourself up for that? You’re gonna be miserable and poor blah blah blah.’’
‘‘But I think if you’re satisfied creatively the money shouldn’t matter. Obviously you have to have a certain amount to live but that’s sort of where I see myself now. Going between oh god why did I do this to myself and I could do anything, anywhere, forever. It’s paralaysing because what do I do next.’’
As we’re figuring out how to carve a pathway for ourselves with no sense of structure to guide us, grants and applications turn into guiding points. This seems to be working for him as he recieved an Agility Award to further his practice from the Arts Council of Ireland this year.
‘‘I feel like art grants are a great directional que. You have to propse something somewhat specific and there has to be a certain amount of follow through. So I’m sort of seeing myself as using these grants as stepping stones. Even if they reject you there’s still at least five people examining your work before they say yes or no. Even if you’re not successful, if you reaplly it shows perseverance.’’
‘‘I’m in fortunate position that my job is somewhat creative as it’s in design. It’s creative enough that it’s keeping me from getting those like makers shakes. It’s stopping me from being like - oh my brain has so many ideas I have to put them all down. Because it’s somewhat of a creative outlet but it’s also somewhat of a negative because it’s not letting that creativity pile up enough that I have to do something. Those manic bursts at 3am that I’m scrolling on the wall aren’t there.’’
And the Notes for a future Memoir…
Exquiste
Touching
Satirical
‘‘That’s what makes nuanced art and you need to have contradictions or contrasts. There’s nothing worse than when something is so samey or repetitive, it’s like give me a point of interest. There has to be tension somewhere.’’
He was recently at an open studio sharing of artsist Barbara Knezevic who said something that really struck him.
‘‘She said what, why and context. What do I make? Why do I make it? And what context does it see itself in? So those are my next big questions. I think you need to keep asking yourself questions and creating tension whether it’s visual or energy, there has to be some sort of disparity.’’
Jack is currently on a postgrad course with NCAD in combination with Superprojects where’ll they’ll have a showing of their work on January 18th with the theme ‘Lán le Fuinnimh.’
He can be found at @jommo.art and @jackomeara00