Breon O’Casey was a true polymath. Possibly unique in terms of his mastery of so many media across a single career, he was a painter, printmaker, weaver, sculptor and jewellery-maker. It is hard to think of any other contemporary artist and maker whose talents were so diverse.
Son of the playwright Sean O’Casey (1880-1964), Breon spent most of his career in Cornwall where he was strongly associated with the painters, potters, and sculptors of the St Ives movement. He arrived in the coastal town in the 1959 and served artistic apprenticeships under sculptors Barbara Hepworth and Denis Mitchell, and was friends with leading artists such as Peter Lanyon, John Wells and Tony O’Malley.
In 1999 O’Casey recalled:
"One day, watching television, sometime in the late fifties, I saw a film about Alfred Wallis…the film incidentally showed St Ives and the studios of the artists living there. I realised it was the place for me. I owned a small orange Ford van. I packed the van and went. St Ives! In those days it was still a working fishing port, with tourism and artists tolerated, but kindly tolerated. Coming from Torquay, where I had felt like a rhinoceros walking along the streets, the relief of mingling with other crazy artists was enormous…I felt secure and there was a sort of electricity in the air."
O’Casey’s abstract style was poetic and focussed on elucidating the simplicity of objects and forms. For him there was ‘nothing new under the sun, but an infinity of arrangements’ and when asked about objects that captivated him it was ‘not the wood, not the tree, but the leaf; not the distant view, but the hedge; not the mountain, but the stone.’ He would return to geometric motifs and natural forms repeatedly throughout his career and considered himself a ‘traditional innovator,’ fascinated by ancient, primitive, and non-western art, but imbuing it with his own poetic sensibilities and discoveries through all the creative channels he explored.
Although often overshadowed by his St Ives contemporaries, O’Casey’s legacy, talents, and unique skills are now being reassessed and greater importance given to his accomplishments beyond narrow and interlocked art circles.
"Breon O’Casey is a man for all seasons. He thinks and feels with his hands and moves with apparent ease from two-dimensional to three-dimensional activities, from one medium to another, without losing the artistic integrity of his intent." - Peter Murray