Conor O'Brien

I've recently completed a bachelors degree in Fine Art. I create artworks through a range of media such as painting, drawing, photography and more. I aim for my work to be layered, both visually and conceptually, so that its capable of communicating numerous narratives to the viewer depending on their life experience, and for the subject matter to be viewed in a wider context beyond the frame of the image.

I'm very interested in documenting urban environments at night – the time I find most interesting, both socially and visually – when people return to their private lives behind closed doors. At night, the streets are quieter, the lights are stronger, the alleys are darker and the atmosphere is moodier – there is a mysterious air of uncertainty that I find very intriguing. I like to convey isolation and loneliness in the city despite the fact that so many people live there. The idea of feeling stranded and alone in a densely populated area is a contradiction that interests me. These qualities provided a canvas from which I could portray psychological issues and feelings of misery, melancholy and mystery through cinematic stills of unsettled, isolated figures.

Through the structural composition, colourful array of lights and cinematic quality of each scene, I try to find the beauty in the conventionally ugly and neglected parts of the city that are hidden away from the busy city centre, while maintaining the somewhat unsettling, melancholic mood that these scenes evoke.