Do you have any early memories of being interested in the arts generally or painting or drawing specifically?
Yes. As a child I loved drawing dinosaurs, aliens, and monsters. By the time I was six of seven I was drawing on a regular basis. By the age of ten or eleven I began to be interested in D&D and Tolkien so I began to draw maps of lands and countries, castles and dungeons, and other worlds generally.
By the age of 14 onwards (secondary school) I began to execute detailed drawings of the architecture (being sure at that age that I wanted to be an architect) of buildings I wanted to live in, such as Yeats’ round tower house, and also the architecture of realms such as Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven after beginning the reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
My mother was an accomplished painter so there was that influence as well. I also read about the ID and Ego and Super Ego and created drawings about different levels of awareness in my last year of primary school which was at John XXIII Catholic primary school in Unionville, Ontario, Canada.
Did you get any support or encouragement to pursue art at home or at school?
Yes, both my parents were very supportive in terms of visual art and music (I began piano at age eleven). My mother was an accomplished painter so there was always helpful hints and instruction/encouragement from her. She was also a beautiful Irish speaker and singer and a Flamenco dancer too so there were music and dance influences as well. My father was keen on visual arts, but was mostly a classical and jazz guitarist, though his main practice was flamenco guitar. She worked in the home and he was a physicist. My mother was from Ligoneil and my father was from India. I received a fine education in the house about a variety of music, dance, and visual arts, and the expressions of various cultures. When I was 13 they brought me to my first serious exhibition of Van Gough in Toronto.
Teachers at primary school were supportive. My two teachers at secondary school were excellent. I have four years of basic training in skills and art history, and then the final year for more abstract expressions where I was given the freedom to explore. The visual arts training at secondary school at St. Robert Catholic High School was better than what I received at the university level. I studied music at university, but also took three art courses and most importantly was able to use the sculpture studio whenever I wanted, which put me in a strong position when I decided to go full time in 1994 and was able to create a body of work in a proper studio.
Did you study art at university or college?
I studied music at university: jazz, composition and theory, and modern music. I also took non electives in logic and a variety of other subjects. I took a total of two or three classes in visual arts. Mostly I had a good relationship with the sculpture studio managers who allowed me to use the studio to create my own work.
I should say that the courses I took in music and logic helped me as much in my visual art practice as did the actual art courses. Much of the visual arts education at the university level was excessively inward looking and lacked a proper focus on the gaining of actual skills, so I am glad I studied music instead. The sculpture studio managers were generally far better teachers than the actual teachers who taught subjectivity and social relativism instead of art.
See more of Farhad O’Neill’s work here: farhadsculpture.com
