Tina O'Connell: Odysseys of Self
Opening Reception: Thursday 13 August 6 - 8 pm
I am an artist rooted in North Clare, where the limestone landscape of the Burren and generations of family making have shaped my sense of place and belonging. My practice is grounded in the present, weaving storytelling, humour, and material exploration to navigate motherhood, memory, and the evolving self as it unfolds through everyday life. Working primarily in sculpture, I create tactile, narrative-driven works that dwell in the domestic, the absurd, and the deeply familiar.
Wood is a material of inheritance. My father, a carpenter, left trails of sawdust from his workshop to the kitchen table; now I carry that same trace, the scent of freshly cut timber embedded in my skin. As I carve, memory settles into the body-the rhythm of tools recalls my grandfather's stories, my mother's voice calling from the doorway, and the quiet negotiations of care that shape family life. The grain becomes a place where personal and collective histories meet, each sculpture carrying fragments of lived experience.
Humour runs quietly through the work, offering an entry point into subjects that are often difficult to articulate. Familiar objects, exaggerated forms, and emojis appear as contemporary symbols of emotional expression, reflecting the distance between the selves we perform and the feelings we carry beneath the surface. These characters occupy a space between comedy and vulnerability, inviting recognition before revealing more complex emotional narratives.
My sculptures inhabit the threshold between stillness and animation, memory and the present, tradition and invention. They ask what it means to care, to endure, to laugh, and to continue becoming. By bringing carved figures and everyday objects into motion, I hope to create moments of pause where viewers recognise echoes of their own lives and discover that even the smallest gestures can hold profound emotional weight.