Interview
Marcie O’Neill
Marcie lives and works on Bundjalung Country, Byron Bay Shire, Australia. Working across sculpture, painting and performance, Marcie’s practice distills narrative and symbolism from the noise of lived experience, examining existential terrain and how we project ourselves upon it.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I came to art through a deep need to make sense of experience. My practice developed from an attraction to material, form and symbolism, and over time became a way of exploring healing, tension, balance and the inner landscape. I work across sculpture, painting and performance, and each medium allows me to approach the same core concerns in a different way. Living and working on Bundjalung Country has also shaped my relationship to place, stillness and process. My journey in the art world has grown through making, exhibiting, performing, and continually refining a language that feels honest to what I am trying to express.”
What inspires you?
“I’m inspired by life experience, especially the parts that are difficult to explain directly like, healing and memory, I’m very drawn to materials themselves, to stone, steel, weight and balance, because they already hold a kind of language. I use them to explore how people carry pain, repair and transformation. I’m also inspired by the idea of finding form in chaos, and creating something that feels both raw and resolved.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“My work explores healing, resilience, fragility, balance and transformation.”
How would you describe your work?
“Vulnerable brutalism.”
Which artists influence you most?
“Louise Bourgeois, Francis Bacon, Patti Smith, Brett Whitely, Kim Gordon. The list is literally endless and completely mood dependent as influence often appears not as ostensible homage but in attitude , resilience, courage and the things for which there are no words.”
What is your creative process like?
“My creative process is intuitive and reductive. I begin with a feeling, tension or idea, then work through materials and form to distill it to something essential. Across all mediums, I’m trying to transform noise and complexity into a resolved symbolic language.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“The artist’s role is to observe deeply, question honestly, and make visible what is often hidden. As society becomes faster and more fragmented, I think artists have an even more important role in creating meaning, reflection and connection.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
“I am represented in Sydney by Hake House of Art and have had two solo exhibitions, ‘Transmissions from the Fertile Void’ and ‘Bones’ with them as well as a solo show with Brunswick Street gallery in Fitzroy Melbourne titled ‘Kicks, Devotion, Scars.’”
Website: www.marcieoneill.com
Instagram: @marcieoneill_spacejunk
