Clare O’Neill

Encaustic Photographs

My “Below the Surface” series depicts classic images reminiscent of old Hollywood. They are full of gesture, spontaneity, and motion, and on the surface explore notions of glamorous femininity through the black dress, stiletto heels, and black stockings. But like all women and all artistic expression, there is much below the surface.

These images were shot underwater, giving my model and I mere moments to capture a pose before the pull of the water changed the image forever. For me, it was an exploration of the past and the future, the vulnerability and the sense of unbalance we feel when everything changes – in my case, the loss of my mother. You are forever held in that moment in time, while at the same time compelled to move forward, willingly or not.

These photographs were printed on tissue paper in multiple pieces, which were imbedded within layers of hot beeswax and pigments to create a more textural piece. As part of the process, I cropped the images out of their underwater environment so that viewers can bring their own memories and sensibility to the work.

Still, this series is personal to me. Several of the dresses photographed belonged to my mother, imbuing the images with her timeless sense of style.  But the mixed-media layering process I use helps transform her dresses and these images into something unique and new. In this work, as in my life, I’m piecing together what time has changed.

Clare O'Neill is a Minnesota based artist. She began her photographic career taking images of the people and places of Ireland during nearly two decades of traveling to Ireland. After a career change in 2008, she showed her first body of photographic work in 2009.

Her one-of-a-kind encaustic photographs are held in private and public collections across the United States and Ireland.

Clare O'Neill's photography has evolved over time. She began as a traditional black & white film photographer, yet her desire to bring depth and texture to her images currently guides her work. Inspired by traditional oil painters, she uses her images as a starting point to manipulate and create works with a three-dimensional quality. The images are spontaneous. They begin as high-resolution digital images; O'Neill then applies and re-applies multiple layers and textures, both digitally and with beeswax, until her interpretation of the image feels right. Rendered with a dream-like haze, O'Neill's work suggests an imaginative, sensual, and provocative style. The wax adds a sense of mystery and intrigue. Each exquisite work becomes timeless, allowing the image and composition to suggest a unique quality that speaks to the viewer. Her photos etch a place in our memory with much more detail than the original
out-of-the-camera image.

The Process
Clare O'Neill works in encaustic, a wax-based painting medium that dates back thousands of years. Its origins are in ancient Greece when shipbuilders used beeswax to caulk and waterproof the hulls of their vessels. They discovered by adding pigment to the wax they could create patterns on the hull's surface for when the warships sailed into battle.

 Her mixed-media material consists of molten beeswax, pigment and damar crystals. The process entails fusing the layers of wax after each application thus allowing the viewer to see many layers at once. During the 20th century, the availability of electrically heated equipment and commercially prepared materials greatly facilitated working in this ancient wax-based medium. Encaustic's contradictory aspects – hot/cold, opaque/translucent, liquid/solid, thick/thin, immediate/enduring – attest to its unique potential to embody many things at once. This unusual versatility constitutes its long-lasting yet fragile appeal.

Perfection and control in photo encaustics are impossible. The process is most satisfying if you can allow for the unexpected. The imperfection of the work is its own elegance.