Oisín O'Brien

My practice is a way to extend the absurdity of our participation to being in, and of the world, both socially and culturally. I am particularly drawn to the anxiety of having to deal with the emotional transitions of swirling through a variety of prescribed and chosen roles. Furthermore, I am curious to the ways people maintain buoyancy in these shifts, through objects, gestures and rituals such as the hat my grandfather would put on to engage with his woodwork hobby. This occurs through a quest for sensemaking that is paralleled by a need to be emancipated from it.

Recurringly, the elements of the works come from an amalgamation of high/low culture, the act of exhibition making, humour, leisure pursuits, the formation of language, presumptions of taste and wanting to know what people choose to do with their time. I destabilise a series of familiar signifiers, expected roles and functions of elements from everyday life to allow for a greater malleability of meanings. The aim of this is to create an informal and propositional environment where everything becomes barely, but wholly justifiable, where the familiar is untethered from its linearity and retuned to a less syncopated rhythm.

My working practice combines hand crafted, procured and found elements. Previously this has manifested through a combination of mixed media sculptural installation, painting, text, and video amongst other elements.