LO001 Liam O'Neill E12-16 Elm Burl 6.5"w x 5"h. From Rude Osolnik Collection.

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Liam O'Neill Thirty-four years ago Liam O'Neill began to work as an apprentice woodturner under John Shiel at Bagenalstown, w Thirty-four years ago Liam O'Neill began to work as an apprentice woodturner under John Shiel at Bagenalstown, whilst there, he was in close contact with the Kilkenny Design Workshops. He then worked for nearly eleven years setting up and managing the woodturning section of Retos, the rehabilitation facility for handicapped adults established at Shannon, Co. Clare. During this time, he attended courses in advanced woodturning, led by internationally known creative woodturners such as the Americans David Ellsworth and Bob Stocksdale. He was influential in setting up the Irish Woodturners Guild, in response to his own experience and the numbers of people who were moving into the area of professional woodturning. From 1983-85, he won First Prize in the Royal Dublin Society's Craft Competition (Wood Turning Section). In 1984, he was awarded the Dr. Muriel Gahan Scholarship to the U.S.A. to travel and study with leading American Woodturners. Since 1992 Liam O'Neill has worked from his own Studio at Spiddal, Co. Galway, where he has been supported by Udaras na Gaeltachta. Whilst he makes large-scale production work, his interests has always lain in the way in which he could use woodturning creatively to make unique sculptural pieces. The creative thinking involved in this work plays back upon his production design thinking. The development of woodturning techniques has always been important to Liam O'Neill. A creative idea develops, technical rethinking becomes necessary. By September 1997, he had designed and built a huge outdoor lathe to make the large vessels on show outdoors here. What is exciting about this body of outdoor work, is not simply its scale or the technical complexity of evaluating the wood used, but the fact that these outdoor pieces are elements in a single series. Some woodturners have used large scale turning, but none here or elsewhere have produced a body of such pieces as part of a coherent single body of thought and creative expression. The result is that their scale brought up those of the indoor pieces, many of which are large. In sculptural and woodturning terms, this is an exciting and adventurous project. It literally and metaphorically takes the possibilities of woodturning into new dimensions.

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