"Patience" by Jenny O'Brien
I first met Jenny O'Brien in the Spanish Arch Hotel in Galway one morning, and interviewed her across a white-linen-clad table in the empty restaurant. My son was restaurant manager at the time, and as I couldn't drive after having cut my hand very severely on glass, he kindly gave us permission to conduct our interview over idle silver cutlery and sad-looking wine glasses, awaiting their table napkin adornments. Noisy chefs in the adjoining kitchen were our background music as curious staff members thudded up and down the wooden staircase between downstairs bar and first-floor restaurant.
"Marilyn" by Jenny O'Brien
I was again reminded of Jenny a couple of months after our interview, when I heard her pure voice singing on Galway Bay FM radio. I remembered she played in a wedding band, that music was a huge thing in her life .... and was proud indeed, possessive of the knowledge that 'I knew her', when I heard her sing. Our interview had covered most aspects of her portraiture and painting career but had only touched on her music career.
I wanted to spotlight Jenny here because recently she has shown a lot of kindness and generosity to my niece, Ferne Krystal, who is an aspiring singer and lyricist. She met with us in Athenry (Co. Galway, Ireland) one lunch time and was quite happy for Ferne to pick her brains about all things musical in Ireland, giving her sound advice about recording equipment and offering to work with her on a dem CD.
"The Wedding Couple" by Jenny O'Brien
A few weeks later, after my husband's work Christmas dinner - in February! - we ambled down to the Quays bar in Galway's night hot-spot, to hear Jenny sing with a Funky Rock band, which she does from midnight every Thursday. We arrived early, all the better to pick our good viewing seats in the pub, and Jenny immediately came over to us to chat and give Ferne more advice and titbits, before taking her place on the stage with the band. And wow! what a natural, easy and well-projected voice our Jenny has! We loved the music and loved her singing.
Ferne called Jenny a week or so later and arranged to get together to record a couple of songs, which they duly did, in the recording studio in Jenny's home. She generously gave hours of her time, her skills and the use of her equipment, in her usual friendly and open way.
Thank you Jenny! It's my pleasure to once again highlight your self and your talent.
This is Jenny's profile:
Jenny O'Brien
"I'm not particularly full of angst and just want to express myself"
Jenny O'Brien's mother is an artist and used to keep the cereal boxes for her children to draw on. "There was always loads of arty stuff around the house ... and I thought everybody's house was like that. I remember when I was almost five years old I wrote on the wall and tried to blame it on my then-unborn brother!" Her dad was a guitar and trombone player so Jenny was always encouraged to either draw or play music - her instrument being the piano. when she got to secondary school she had to choose between music and art. Art won and she continued with piano lessons but didn't go down the academic route with music.
"Buttons" by Jenny O'Brien
She was born in the Coombe Hospital in Dublin in 1976 and when she was three the family moved to Cork, from there to Wexford and in 1995 Jenny moved to Galway. She had been doing a teaching degree in Dublin for two years, but felt that there was no focus on the actual learning of her discipline. She knew she wanted first and foremost to be a painter and felt too young to teach. "Even now I get asked for ID!" she grinned. "You have to learn what it is you're teaching before you can teach."
She transferred to Galway to do a Fine Arts Higher Diploma. "Neither my Leaving Cert nor my studies in Dublin stirred any philosophy for me and I felt that that part of my brain was starting to atrophy with lack of use. I had forgotten how to form an opinion on a piece of work and felt too far removed from where I wanted to be. I needed to change that." To cut a long story short, she got engaged to Kieran Kelly who teaches guitar and writes music and lyrics; plays and sings in a wedding band called "Fraggle Rock" (who have recently released a CD); and moved to Athenry where she and Kieran have built a house.
Jenny's degree exhibition centred around portraits. Exposure to variety in the arts whilst doing her degree in Galway gave her a focus and she found portraits to be her natural inclination. "I've developed my style over the years and can recognise now when a painting is working and when it's not. My standards are higher, still a bit refined, but less brown and dark ... I've come out of my gothic style now!"
"The Boys" by Jenny O'Brien
"I paint murals as well and have wonderful conversations with children while I'm painting their walls. One little girl of eight or nine years old wanted a forest scene and I found it quite daunting trying to keep up with her imagination."
Jenny works with oils on canvas but for smaller paintings she uses little pieces of board, and because it needs to be more precise she uses brushes only. For portraits she uses very fine brushes actually meant for acrylics, working from good photographs - which she prefers to take herself. "I want to get a likeness and the character of the person."
"Matteo" by Jenny O'Brien
"My techniques are pretty traditional. I work up layers of paint with glazing - it takes a while and I need to look back at it. I don't exactly reproduce the photograph but if it works, a painting can be a stronger image because it's what you see in someone as well as what their face looks like. When you do a portrait there is something of yourself in it too.
"Edward Hopper would be a good influence on me. At college one student spoke about how beautiful his work was and my viewpoint was completely to do with the people and how miserable they looked in some of his work during the depression in the States. When I started college in Galway I felt back in a creative atmosphere, finding out where I fitted in. I'm not particularly full of angst or anything and just want to express myself and my interest in people and people-watching. I'm curious, just nosy really, about their behaviour and the reasoning for them being the way that they are.
"The Central Hotel" by Jenny O'Brien
"I find 'that moment' fascinating and I like to catch people unawares. I'd like to be doing more work that lands closer to observation of people but not necessarily portraits. Putting people into a setting and painting what I see as well as including things I think are amusing, are my inspiration."
Jenny's work to date has been mainly commission based but recently she has begun working on paintings with a view to a solo exhibition. Her 2006 exhibition and calendar launch in the Kenny Gallery in Galway gave her a tremendous boost and she's working to aim higher this time.
www.jennyobrienportraits.com
My art website : https://lyndacookson.blogspot.fr/
The ePlan page : https://onlinepresenceassistant.blogspot.fr/