Bandon man joins dots to create smart city mural

By Kieran O’Mahony

A BANDON printmaker has breathed new life on to the exterior of a former ESB power station in Cork city with his colourful and striking mural.

Shane O’Driscoll – a former student of Hamilton High School  and a graduate of  Visual Communications at CIT – was commissioned by Brown Thomas to transform the exterior of the art deco building on Caroline Street.

It was supported by the Council-backed Cork City Centre Placemaking Fund which seeks to enhance and improve people’s experience of the city centre.

‘Brown Thomas got in touch with me back in April about this project as part of a rejuvenation of the street and asked would I be interested in doing it. I had worked for them before on designing one of their windows on Grafton Street so there was a connection there already,’ said Shane.

‘They pretty much gave me a free canvas which was great and I did two different mock up designs for it. It took me four days to paint but it had to be primed before the paint was applied. I was assisted by another graphic artist Gareth Joyce, who was actually involved with the Creative Bandon project in recent months where he painted ESB boxes in the town.’

Thankfully, the weather held up while Shane and Gareth got to work transforming the exterior of the building mixing shocking pink with red and navy dots with splashes of orange and grey

Shane, who is a member of Cork Printmakers, describes it as a  ‘bold simple abstract graphics piece.’ 

It was a family affair at the official launch last Thursday as his family including his dad, Gearoid O’Driscoll of ODM Accountants attended as did his uncle Frank and his wife Rita and other family members.

‘The mural will stay like this until they decide to do something about it. The feedback has been amazing from people and we had people coming up to us telling us about the history of the building too which was nice,’ added Shane.

He is currently preparing for the opening of a two man exhibition at the So Fine Art Gallery in Dublin next week along with Joby Hickey. In recent months he was also commissioned to make a large print piece for the atrium of the new business building in Trinity College.

‘I have a few other projects in the mix so all will be revealed soon!’