POLESTAR
— William O’Neill
1 November 2025 – 24 January 2026
In Polestar, William O’Neill presents a concentrated suite of still-life works from 2019-2025. These paintings, disparate in subject, achieve formal coherence through a rigorous compositional mandate: the chosen object is always the picture’s unflinching centre.
O’Neill’s aesthetic fascination lies in simplicity and the quietly underrated. His favouring of quotidian forms and simple geometries acts as a foundation for a rich painterly dialogue. Yet, beneath the initial photorealistic precision, the work allows the subtle mark-making—the artist’s gesture and expression—to assert itself. The crucial question remains: What happens when objects of such ordinariness are passed through this careful and considered painting process?
William O’Neill’s paintings are process driven. He meticulously creates still-life scenes, which he photographs and works from. He’s interested in these still-life arrangements for their angles, shapes, the positive/negative space they create, how the objects interact with each other and their potential as subject matter.
Born in 1986 in Dublin, O’Neill lives and works in Meath, Ireland. He graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Art Painting from the National College of Art and Design in 2009. In 2023 he undertook an artist residency at Joya: arte + ecología / AiR, Almeria, Spain. ‘Luminous Gatherings’ his first solo exhibition took place at Kevin Kavanagh Gallery in 2022. He was the recipient of the Solstice Visual Arts Award at Solstice Arts Centre in 2021. In 2019, he was shortlisted for the RHA Hennessy Craig Award. His first artist book, William O’Neill Paintings, was published in 2023 by Kevin Kavanagh. Recent group exhibitions include; The Anonymous Artist, Art Riddler Exhibition 2025, One Charlemont Square, 2025; Moments of Being, Solstice Arts Centre, 2025; 195th RHA Annual Exhibition, RHA, 2025; Surveyor 2024, Solstice Arts Centre, 2024; Bucolica Open Call Exhibition, Artform, Mount Congreve Gardens, 2024; Open Submission Group Show 2023, Dunamaise Arts Centre, 2023; Connections, Boyle Arts Festival, 2023.
www.williamoneill.ie