Bio / Contact

As a commercial artist and illustrator of over a decade, UK based artist Ian O’Neill has worked on a multitude of different projects with a variety of clients. Working on commissions for everything from album cover art to product packaging, Ian has dabbled in a multitude of artistic approaches over the years. He has also worked in narrative art through the medium of drawing comics and graphic novels.

This journey has led him through many different approaches; from graphic design using digital applications, creating logos and vector art for marketing and product design. To photoshop-based concept artist for entertainment media, working with graphic tablets and stylus. To pencilling comics, and inking with a variety of tools. All of which has led him back to the innate need to end the working day with the signature messy fingers that adorn only those working with traditional, tactile media.

With a broad range of influences stretching all the way from the comics, movies and video games of the pop culture of his 1980’s and 1990’s youth, to the art contemporaries of today. Including both those from the traditional art market and the emergent social media driven self-reliant artists pushing the boundaries of self promotion today. All of these diverse influences have forged Ian’s unique style and approach to expressing his feelings through art.

In recent years, his cartoonist-influenced graphic style has evolved to become more fluid and less clinical; returning to his roots of working primarily with traditional methods such as acrylic, pencil, pastel, collage and ink. He now combines expressive brush strokes with a mixed media approach, working on wood and paper, to achieve a result that aims to express himself honestly, without restraint, in resistance to the anxiety that has been an oppressive and dominant force throughout much of his adult life.