LAST WORD: Embracing the deer inside

Setting off to Japan last spring, Jackie O’Neill figured she knew what would pique her artistic interest. A friend’s wedding provided Jackie with a chance of three weeks to explore the exotic land that seemed to echo her own work back in her Ballyhaise studio. For those yet to have been charmed by her gorgeous works, Jackie’s enjoying a healthy demand for prints of her cute-as-cute-can-be dress-wearing deer creation called Dotti, and a menagerie of other characters, such as the curious alien-style chicks standing on wires, and ladybirds of many hues seemingly practising parachute formation routines (you really have to see it). Given the playful innocence of Jackie’s work, it seemed a given that Japan was the place to go.
“I went to Japan looking for this cartoon-like ‘Kawaii’ they call it - this cuteness that adults carry on and everyone looks like cartoons. My pictures of chickens and Dotti are very ‘kawaii’ - it is nearly like a movement of design or art in Japan.”
However in up close, she found that ‘kawaii’ occasionally displayed unsavoury undertones. One example which tainted the idea for her came in a diner called The Maids’ Cafe, where business men oggled at pretty young waitresses behaving like they were even younger still.
“They were acting like little girls - the maids. I ordered an omelette and the omelette came in the shape of a cat’s head and the maid squirted ‘Hello Kitty’ on my omelette with ketchup and started clapping and dancing,” says Jackie, mimicking an excited child. “It’s all quite sinister - they are trying to be innocent and childlike - it’s a very strange kind of, I don’t know whether you would call it a fetish, but a kind of craze in Tokoyo.”
Spreading her sketches from her Japan adventure across the table in the Celt offices, Jackie shows a range of work quite unlike anything she has shown before, but still they somehow retain her distinctive style - her loose, confident penwork, tea-stained backgrounds and uncanny eye for harmonising colours.
Jackie’s style of course was honed over four years studying for her degree where she discovered that her passion wasn’t for primarily painting, but in textiles. Graduation gown discarded she quit Ireland.
“I headed off to London for an adventure,” she recalls of her 2009 decision.
The adventure got off to a promising start.
“First thing that I did was get a fashion internship for a small label called Neurotica in East London and she (the owner) wasn’t much older than myself.”
Backed by an investment from Dragon’s Den, Neurotica was stocked by some High Street giants, and Jackie’s work - the best in the collection - was noticed.
“My designs ended up being in Top Shop which was fantastic, but there was no money exchanged - it was an internship.
She continues: “I was just delighted. I was watching out for people in London walking down Oxford Street wearing my design!
“It was a really great moment to see that my designs were popular and I was doing something different - and this woman (her boss) could see that.
“That was the first kind of achievement for me even though there was no money involved - it was a different kind of achievement.”
Sadly, despite the Dragons’ cash, Neurotica went bankrupt. Jackie still looks back fondly on the experience.
“I learnt from her mistakes, and I learnt from her knowledge as well.”
An internship with Topman followed but it wasn’t for Jackie.
“It was kind of like factory working. I was screen printing big designs onto t-shirts all day long - but then it was good to see the commercial end of things.”
Next up, a receptionist job in a London bank saw Jackie continue to drift away from her true calling.
“It was great money, with long hours, and very soul destroying.”
However the grim grind of answering calls all day helped her to refocus on what she really wanted to devote her life.
“About six months before I quit that job, it was a Monday morning, and I thought - I don’t want to go in here, it’s just too soul destroying. This is not what I came to London to do. I really thought, would I be missed if I’m not in here? I’m just telling people what floor to go to.”
Over a phone call with her big sister, folk musician Lisa O’Neill, everything changed. Lisa convinced Jackie to have the same courage to follow her artistic dreams as she had in pursuing her musical calling.
While Jackie planned her escape route home, she kept a doodling notebook close by, and it was through letting her mind and hand wander in unison that she created her trademark ‘Dotti Was A Deer’.
Is Dotti your alter-ego?
“Yes, she was when I was in London. It sounds silly, but yeah. I didn’t realise it at the time but now I realise she is. I came up with Dotti when I was sitting at a desk in this job that I was completely lost in, and when you are in a job that you are not suited to, you end up not feeling great, so to me Dotti is this half deer half girl who doesn’t fit into a normal category. “She’s a bit lost, but in the end she embraces that she is half girl half deer - she goes with it and it’s a happy ending - she’s Dotti and it’s good and she’s different and it works for her. So I think that’s how I felt.”
Jackie’s unique style that had already proved a hindrance for her when she was getting rejected from design interviews, now proved to be her salvation.
“I was advised that it was too distinctive. I couldn’t just do the average blocky flower that you would see in fashion. I was advised to do my own thing because I was too unique.”
Despite the different direction of the handful of preparatory sketches she shows the Celt ahead of her Japanese exhibition, her unique style is still clear to see. Amongst the paintings of a Japanese friend’s grandmother, wedding assistants in ceremonial costumes, and delicate flowers, there is one familiar subject which came from a visit to gardens in Nara, in north Japan.
“They have wild deer running free in Nara, which I was particularly keen to see because I’m obsessed with deers because of Dotti. The say that the deer is the messenger of the Buddah in Nara. I thought that was quite nice - they really respect these little wild creatures, they think there is something spiritual about the deer.”
The greatest departure for Jackie is an installation ‘Caught In A Loop’ which gives the Japanese exhibition its title. It was inspired by a visit to Hiroshima’s Peace Park.
“There was a monument dedicated to a little girl called Sadako Sasaki who was only two when the atomic bomb hit,” explained Jackie.
The explosion of the bomb just 1.6km from the infants home actually blew her through a window, and her mother went out expecting to find her daughter dead. Miraculously Sadako survived, but years later began to develop swellings behind her ears and purple marks on her legs.
“When she grew older she developed leukaemia through the radiation and ended up in hospital,” Jackie continues. “She was told by a family member this old Japanese tale of the belief that if you fold 1,000 origami cranes your wish would come true - you have to fold them yourself and you can’t give them away.
“This gave her great comfort and she started folding them in the hospital bed, but she only got as far as 644 before she grew too weak and passed away. So her classmates folded the other 356 and buried them with her in tribute and there’s a monument dedicated to her. So this story really touched me.
“It’s my tribute to her - my friends and me were making them out of respect to Sadako and to tell her story in Cavan.”
The origami cranes are suspended from three wooden rings, for which Jackie enlisted the help of woodwork expert Joseph Doherty. Coloured twine criss-crosses the diameter of the wooden rings in random but coherent lines.
“It’s all this interaction and people passing over almost nearly in a robotic sense because it’s (Tokyo) so busy. That’s what it represents - that loop that everyone is caught in and going so robotically about their business and very calmly.”
The Celt wonders, was it not the same in London?
“Yeah but this is a much calmer loop in Tokyo it seems to work whereas in London it is very dog-eat-dog; a very bad energy, very busy. In Tokyo everyone still manages to be very Zen, and helpful. Yet it’s much busier than London - that’s what struck me.
“The cleaners on the train bow as they come in the train and they bow as they go off the train again - so it’s a completely different culture. People take great pride in what they do and get on with it in this robotic way and everybody is very efficient and ‘go-go-go’ in what they do. That was this loop that I picked up on.”
Another series of Jackie’s artworks which this interviewer is looking forward to seeing is her work which will be displayed in a 100-year-old ash tree, which was a victim of recent strong winds in Ballinagh.
“We’re keeping all the raw bark around the edges and we’re going to cut out the middle and put in some of my organic prints.
“I’m really trying to take advantage of the fact that I’m finally in a gallery. This is really about play.”
Play has led her to create works she really had anticipated before climbing on the plane back in late March.
“I was thinking it would be the kawaii I would pick up on - and there is a little bit of that for my exhibition but I really observed what was around me, and naturally it was the more organic style.
“I let my work lead me naturally to what struck me most, and that’s what I want to always achieve in my work; not go with any pre-conceived ideas, and let it take its own path. I do like the idea of visiting new places - obviously I will have a preconceived idea about the place - but hopefully when I get there, the feeling is different, the visual is different.”
Is that your future?
“I want to also keep doing stuff that I’m doing this week - the real artist in me likes the installations, because that’s what really challenges me.
I want to continue to travel when I can, but I don’t know if I can do it all if Dotti goes well - but every time I need to come up with a new body of work I think it might be a nice idea to go somewhere for a few ideas.”
She’s intrigued by Vancouver and there’s the possibility that she may apply for a residency in Estonia next year with the Arts Office, but it is still only a suggestion at the minute.
“It seems that everywhere I go I do get this overwhelming inspiration from everything around me so I don’t think it really matters where I go.”
But can an artist afford to stay in Cavan?
“Definitely. London was too big, you get lost, you don’t know where to start. It’s just so big and trendy and fashionable. Cavan is a bit kinder to my soul and calmer.
I think there’s definitely an opening in Cavan for contemporary affordable art which is what I’m doing - yes you can pay a lot more for my textile, but I also have the more recession friendly affordable options - my prints start at €15 - it’s still a limited edition, and you’re still getting someone’s art.”

Caught In A Loop, an exhibition of textiles & illustrations by Jackie O’Neill runs until December 16.