Dundalk based artist Barry Finnegan talks about his artistic journey

Back in September we talked to Dundalk artist Barry Finnegan for Louth Life magazine.

Growing up, Barry was “always drawing from a very young age” and had a keen interest in comic books, but it was discovering graffiti that sparked his evolution as a visual storyteller. 

“I played in a band and it was designing the logo for the band [that led to] discovering graffiti, it was kind of a natural progression,” he explains.

After studying visual communication, Barry’s early commissions came from county councils and companies, painting murals and doing live art events. 

He was Creative Spark’s first artist in residence and spent five years working in the graphic design business before deciding it was time for a change. 

“I just wanted to produce art full time and sort of pushed the design stuff away and six or seven years later, it's going well and things have gone from strength to strength.”

And how did the Ominous Omin moniker come about?

“With graffiti people have their own tag that’s unique to them and for me it was a case of ‘let me pick four letters that nobody else has.’ So  I took the ‘e’ out of Omen and put an ‘I’ in instead. The ominous was just good for Instagram. People might think I’m a big scary guy but I’m not,” he laughs.

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While always trying new things, there are some themes and techniques that Barry finds himself coming back to in his work. 

“I’m very interested in flora and fauna and natural occurring things.I like  close ups of flowers and things like that while trying to interweave the digital influences that I have as well. I’m interested in when your television goes all glitchy and effects when things are distorted. Something that should be polished being affected by something else, that’s what appeals to me.

“You can be a pure perfectionist in what you do but sometimes it’s nice to have that human touch or distortion.”

Follow Barry’s work on Instagram at: @ominous_omin