About:

Kevin O’Brien is a Irish Visual Artist based in Blarney, Co. Cork, Ireland. Graduate of the Crawford College of Art and Design with a Honours B.A. in Fine Art in 2021. The work is primarily photography based and centred around landscapes and nature, but depending on the concept, the medium may change to printmaking, video, installation, etc. Whatever medium he believes will be best executed for the concepts in question.

General Artist Statement:

The main theme around my work is simply, “Creative Thinking”. My main objective is trying to get the audience to think, not about what they see on the surface, but what goes on within. Similar to Romanticism, I go more in depth with my work and try to give it more context, more dimension, whether it be emotionally, dramatically, metaphorically, historically, or even physically, at least the viewer will be given a better understanding of the work and not just say that the work looks ‘Beautiful, pretty, etc.’ Personally, context is vital to my work because if the artist does not know why they created the work they made, then how is the audience going to understand it.

Influences:

I am primarily influenced by Romantic painters J.M.W. Turner and C.D. Friedrich. Their work is full of emotion and drama. Without it, the work may not be as notable as it is today. Their work is sublime and I try to capture that sense, that feeling with my work. Photographers such as Ansel Adams and Wolfgang Tillmans help me with both setting and shooting my images, in both the editing and exhibiting process. When it comes to capturing and creating the context, I try to use some ingenuity to give my work that extra push. That’s were Surrealists such as Dali, Magritte and Tim Cantor come into the fold. Their works are quite bizarre, appearance wise, but like the Romantics, the more you focus on what it’s about and not what it looks like, the work comes full circle and gives it more depth and more dimensions to you the viewer.