Cover | Clúdach

Abstract

Cover | Clúdach Angela Griffith (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Cover. Mandy O’Neill, Diane, 2018 PHOTOGRAPH Used with the artist’s permission she looks directly to you. Set against a sky-blue background, Diane is centrally and dominantly placed in the composition. Her beauty is mesmeric; her features flawlessly balanced and proportioned in a perfectly oval face, evocative of classical statues. Like her Greek goddess namesake, her poise is assured and controlled. However, unlike many visual representations of the female across time, she does not passively receive our attention, nor is she confrontational. We are looking at a self-possessed individual. Diane is aware of our gaze, and knowingly returns it. She owns her appearance; her distinctive hairstyle, makeup, and jewelry defy the usual conformities associated with a school uniform. And with that, we realize that we are looking at a young adult, which makes her composure all the more striking. We are witnessing a person’s transition from adolescence to adulthood. The artist who produced this image of Diane is Mandy O’Neill. O’Neill grew up in South Dublin, and she continues to work in the capital. She began training and working as an artist relatively later in life, studying photography at third level in her thirties. She is currently a practice-based doctoral candidate with Dublin City University. O’Neill has always worked in photography. Her early images focused on Dublin’s subcultures, and she continues to engage with those who may be perceived as being on the margins of society, her work countering extant middle-class art experiences. Much of her oeuvre stems from a number of art residencies in schools or [End Page 174] with youth centers, some of which have been state-funded through the Arts Council of Ireland, but many of which were self-initiated. Working best in the context of a longer-term project, O’Neill embeds herself in the environment she observes; it becomes her work space. She enters the school community with no perceived plan; themes are allowed to evolve, to suggest themselves to the artist. While initially members of the community may be suspicious of or self-conscious in her presence, it is important that the artist becomes familiar to students and staff, almost to the point of them no longer seeing her separateness as she wanders from classroom to classroom, from activity to activity. O’Neill’s aim is to ultimately become part of the everyday life of the school, which allows her to explore meaning and relevance within that everydayness. However, the artist does not see her role as that of a removed observer. She has conducted workshops with young adults from differing backgrounds on issues including self-image and the importance of social media and its impacts on their lives. It is essential for O’Neill that she does not enter the engagement process with preconceived ideas or objectives. She gets to know the students on their own terms, and coming from a similar social background she—unsentimentally— shares her own life journey to becoming an artist, a role unfamiliar to many of those she works with. It is important to O’Neill that each young person recognizes and takes ownership of their agency throughout the process. Her most recent work is concerned with cultural diversity among Irish teenagers. Working with a group of female post-primary students, she records their social lives and their neighborhoods, and these photographic explorations are shared and discussed within the wider set, bringing together factions that would remain apart in the school environment. Collaboration with O’Neill provides a safe space for her young subjects to question their lives and the lives of others, to build understanding and tolerance. As the process evolves differences dissipate and are replaced with a sense of kinship and solidarity. How each of her young subjects responds to the camera, as with any group in society, differs greatly; some work with it, as in Diane, others will not. As part of the selfie generation, many teenagers are camera savvy. It is a familiar format: many “know their angles” and strike a pose. At times, O’Neill’s sitters can be disappointed...