Artist Tom O’Hern says he would probably make more money going out in the wilds of Tasmania with some oils than the artistic path he has chosen.
Instead of dominating the landscape, he said he has become a good cartoonist.
“I’d love to be in the desert somewhere with a huge canvas around the oil paintings,” O’Hern told ABC Radio Hobart.
“But I keep trying and it doesn’t really work.”
One of Tom O’Hern’s paintings from his current exhibition, Bum Steer. (Provided by: Tom O’Hern)
Hobart’s artist is a painter, illustrator, muralist, and even animator: think of Mambo in Where the Wild Things Are combined with some old-fashioned scribbles.
For the past 15 years, the work of the 37-year-old has become prolific in Hobart, with its quirky murals appearing in schools, cafes, boats, nightclubs, alleys and, of course, toilets.
“I think I’ve painted 30 toilets for Hobart, probably more. So many toilets,” he said.
“I’d like to paint museums, but I’ll take what I can.”
Tom O’Hern’s murals are a vision known to Hobart. (Provided by: Tom O’Hern)
Celebrating imperfections
O’Hern believes the world is too up to date because everything has to be perfect.
“Everyone is looking at perfect things all the time,” he said.
“Everything is printed on computers, everything is on one screen and flat.”
Tom O’Hern spent a month on an island producing works for his exhibition. (Provided by: Tom O’Hern)
It is mistakes and imperfections, he says, that make life interesting.
“Everyone has forgotten that drawing has always existed and everyone should be able to do it.
“But at some point we became aware. We get annoyed if something doesn’t look like a picture.
“I guess I’m doing well drawing badly.”
For O’Hern, drawing often feels like writing.
“Like when I draw a bird or something, it’s not like I’m trying to draw a realistic bird and hit all the feathers right, it feels like a short hand,” he said.
“I feel like the beginnings of new hieroglyphics and I’m discovering a kind of written language that doesn’t exist yet.”
The murals are a large part of Tom O’Hern’s commissioned work. (Provided by: Mell Schmeider)
Learn to draw, wrong
Last weekend O’Hern did a workshop called How to Draw Very, Very Bad.
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But the participants were all good drawers.
“For those who were just starting out, I said stop being beautiful,” he said.
“For the more experienced, it’s the paradox of being experienced and you get all this experience and knowledge and this can block creativity because you get there from knowing what the answer is.
“But it’s better to be open and not know what the answer is.”
Much of his work is public murals, and he approaches them differently.
“It seems like I’m attacking them in totally different ways, which is sure to scare customers,” he said.
Everyone is born an artist
O’Hern went to school at Geilston Bay High on the east coast of Hobart and then to Rosny College before art school.
He has been making art ever since.
“Everyone really starts in art, is that most people stop dedicating themselves to art at some point,” he said.
Tom O’Hern painted a cement truck for the Terrapin Puppet Theater as part of the Mona Foma festival. (Supplied by: Terrapin Puppet Theater)
He said that “compulsion and an unhealthy addiction to drawing” have kept him going.
“I thought I would keep plugging in, it’s a good way to pass the time,” he said.
Early in his career he moved to Melbourne and learned to live very cheaply and worked in cold stores and leaks.
He says he takes a different approach every time he makes a new mural. (Provided by: Nick Hanson)
His first exhibition was in 2005 in Hobart with some other artists and was based on graffiti and street art with stencils and spray paint.
“It was something totally different that I was trying to do then,” he said.
“Now I work a lot more immediately with drawing and seeing what comes out. I try not to enslave things so much.”
Tom O’Hern says he learned to work more immediately than when he started as an artist. (Provided by: Tom O’Hern)
He said people seemed to appreciate the time it took to become one.
“The first thing people ask when I show a little bit of art is how long it took something, and I really feel like it doesn’t get better if it takes ages,” he said.
“I’m trying to get this over with. Sometimes things get older and sometimes I don’t, and it’s often things done quickly that I think are really better.”
He said it may be difficult to justify, but it has taken him 20 years to get the job done.
Bum Steer
O’Hern Bum Steer’s current solo exhibition at the Bett Gallery includes works he produced on a “secret island” for a month.
“I did one drawing a day, sometimes two,” he said.
“It was a very enjoyable way to work. No sketches, no fixes, just look at what’s going on.
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”
More than half have been sold, an achievement not lost by an artist who has done the hard meters.
“I spent a lot of time in very cold studios blabbering on, when I could also be on the beach taking it easy and going swimming,” he said.
His other big project right now is a piece of public art commissioned by Hobart City Council.
This mural was part of the Junction Arts Festival. (Provided by: Mell Schmeider)
Kids know what to do
He believes that younger children are the best drawing students.
“You don’t really need to tell them anything, they already know what to do,” he said.
“I don’t know when self – awareness is installed.
“Real little kids will just let it break and it’s great,” he said.
He is very pleased to see his daughter drawing.
“I was just looking at a picture of an owl my daughter has drawn, and that’s exactly what I’m trying to do,” she said.
“It’s just a big free owl that I’m going to spend all day working on.
“Is perfect.”