Dara O’Neill is a textile artist, who attended The Grennan Mill Craftschool in Thomastown , went on to study Fibre Art at Ballyfermot College of Further Education and then to The National College of Art and Design to complete a degree in Textiles.

Read more about this artist here:
“I knew from a very young age that I wanted to study art. My grandmother would make clothes and do embroidery. I believe being around her was an influence on me.”

Dara’s piece in the collection is influenced by the landscape she grew up in..
“The lighthouses are solid and man-made, while the surrounding space in the image is soft and non-descriptive, able to move change; the floating world.”
This work was made at a time when she had returned from Japan and was teaching on a Fibre Art course. She explains “Japan may have been an influence, but the main influence was returning and living in the place I grew up”.
Dara uses materials in a non-traditional manner and as an alternative to paper she uses stitches as her pencil, to recreate the manner in which Japanese calligraphy uses brushstrokes. Dara uses hand and machine stitching together with embroidery and hand painting and silkscreen – printing to reflect and document the landscape.