Communication Design School of Design
Arianne O’Neill
My work is influenced by media, music and pop culture. Mixed media is where my love lies as it allows for open opportunities to explore and experiment with a variety of materials, playing into the absurdity and abstractness that can be created. I am inspired by textural concoctions that give an interactive aspect to my work, allowing viewers to get involved in contrast to stereotypical museum work that is held behind a barrier that should only be seen and not felt.
For the duration of my final year, I have focused on the idea of gore and the many different ways it can be depicted. Creating a variety of work debating that beauty can be seen within the macabre.
L’Appel Du Vide
This project is a direct association to the same topic I explored in dissertation format for 4th year. My thesis explored how visual gore functions through its depictions in modern media such as television and movies, asking the question of, is there a difference between these portrayals? Is the gore romanticised, glamourised, glorified or sexualised? If there is a variance between these, what exactly is it that separates these descriptors from one another?
After focusing on this theme in written form, I aimed to visually depict through my own making my interpretation of the topic. Resulting in a collection of 4 mini square canvases and one larger scale A3 canvas, I used earlier developmental monoprint work, layering these images with mesh material, fake blood and ink.
Utilising the viewers reaction as a means of furthering the commentary, do you look at this work and feel disgusted, scared or grossed out? or can some sense of beauty be seen?
Memento Mori
This is a mini project I decided to do in connection with the final outcomes from ‘L’Appel Du Vide’ and my dissertation, using the final canvases from this earlier project to create a book cover. As my studio work and dissertation topic became interlinked, I thought it would be fulfilling to create a physical, hardback copy of my writing that could be read easily.
Fancy A Slice?
Content warning for images that some may find distressing.
This project is a collection of 3D sculptures based on three carefully selected movies going back the past three decades until the early 2000’s. I focused on ‘The Substance’, 2024, ‘Evil Dead’, 2013 and ‘Saw’, 2004.
I generated a wide quantity of ink sketches, spending only 30 seconds to 1 minute on drawing scenes from each movie, filling an entire sketchbook for each which I referred back to in order to discover the most visually intriguing aspects which could be translated into sculpture form. I chose to make different desserts inspired by each movie as a way to play into the concept of indulgence of content consumption, looking at this in the same way we indulge in food, specifically sweet treats.
The Final Course
Finalising my overall 4th year concept of gore, I took the final outcomes from the ‘Fancy A Slice?’ project, combining these sculptures together with the ink sketches to make an artistic recipe book. The book is filled with genuine recipes with a horror themed twist for each of them.
