Showcase & Discover Creative Work

This body of work is concerned with a neglected place in women’s history, glimpsed behind the smiling photographs in scrapbooks of life’s less-celebrated moments.

Aged photographs of an American woman’s 1940’s journey from domestic housewife to professional Navy official, represents the changing lifestyle of a generation of housewives thrown into the demands of war and patriotic duty.

In such extraordinary times the bizarre mixes with the everyday, redefining notions of ‘normal’ in civilian life. Painted illustrations depicting this bizarre mixture creates a sense of unease, as routine innocent actions are tainted by their wartime environment. Gasmasks mix with elderly women knitting, tanks and paratroopers invade common scenes of domesticity, blurring our perceptions of what might be real or imagined.

Collected wartime relics feed the creative drive and textile exploration of the work, where the viewer is encouraged to become the discoverer of these artifacts of previous generations, of lost names and motifs, forgotten lives and lifestyles, unravelling the past.

Original 1940’s dressmaking patterns have informed and inspired a collection of bespoke women’s wear, comprised of utilitarian style garments as vehicles for transcribing digitally printed illustrations, alongside traditional hand embroidery and cross stitching. Read Less

'Impressions' Print Exhibition
3rd Dec- 8th Jan 2011
Galway Arts Centre
47 Dominick Street
Galway

'Put a lid on it' Exhibition
23rd- 27th Nov 2010
Galway Arts Centre
47 Dominick Street
Galway

Dublin Design Week 2010
'The Spacebar'
Mad Art Gallery, 56 Lower Gardiner Street, Dublin 1
November 4th- 13th 2010

RDS Student Art Awards Travelling Exhibition
Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo
November 5 - 26, 2010

RDS Knit & Stitch Exhibition,
Merrion Road, Ballsbridge Dublin 4,
Oct 28th-31st 2010Westport Arts Festival 2010

'Seen/Unseen'
John McGings, High Street, Westport, Co. Mayo
September 30th- October 10th 2010

RDS Student Art Awards Travelling Exhibition
Island Arts Centre, Lisburn, Northern Ireland
September 4 - October 7, 2010

RDS Student Art Awards and Exhibition,
Merrion Road, Ballsbridge Dublin 4, August 2010

''Random Shuffle''
with local Art Initiative 'Groundworks', in a vacant space no.8 Abbey gate street, Galway City, August 2010

New Designers,
Islington, London, July 2010

Graduate Degree Show,
G.M.I.T Chluian Mhuire, Monivea Road, Galway, June 2010 Read Less

AVERAGE Arts Initiative, Galway: http://www.average.ie

Rise Creatives: http://www.risecreatives.ie/serenaoneill

Coroflot: http://www.coroflot.com/serenaoneill

New Designers: http://www.newdesignersonline.co.uk/serenaoneill

Linked In: http://www.linkedin.com/in/serenaoneill

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/serena.oneill Read Less