David O’Mara is an Irish artist working London
Episode 496: London-based Irish artist David O’Mara sat down to talk about his incredibly intriguing process of making work and his book process for this episode.
An interior painter by day, David is all about process, with a significant book-making practice that uses detritus, remnants of discarded elements found in the street, amongst other materials that are repurposed into his unique books. This keeps his process agile and allows him to make books without being overly precious about edition size, which keeps his process humble and allows his practice to evolve more quickly than if he were slowed by the economic stranglehold that making a larger edition, more often, might entail.
With that in mind, David does make an edition on occasion, and during this episode, we spoke about his newest book, Setting Sun, which incorporates imagery from his day job: involuntary sculptures formed from the labor objects at his work. The book, published by Folium Publishing, extends his previous books; in this case, the additional sculptural layer provides an intriguing mechanism that suggests found-object and labor value as a significant exchange, challenging perceptions of studio practice and class. It is a fantastic book, and David and I spoke about that and his more recent darkroom practice in the episode. Yes, we also spoke a little bit about Japanese photobooks, a shared passion.
