Jen O’Dwyer: Grief, Art, and the Power of Slowing Down

Artist and podcaster Jen O’Dwyer has built a career on exploring complex emotions and experiences, from the unsettling depths of true crime with “The Creep Dive” and “Stop The Madness” to the deeply personal journey of navigating grief. Her work, both visual and auditory, is profoundly shaped by the loss of her only sibling to cystic fibrosis.

Finding Stillness Through Art and Rowing

O’Dwyer describes a constant internal struggle between momentum and stillness. “This is me training myself to be still and slow. That’s what I struggle with. I will spin out at top speed. My struggle is always just pullback,” she explained. This pursuit of balance is reflected in her artistic process and her dedication to competitive rowing.

She found that painting and rowing developed concurrently, each informing the other. Rowing, specifically, requires a deliberate slowing down. “You have to row sequentially with your stroke. She sets the time and I have to follow her, so I have to slow f**king down and be present, and then all of that is painting as well. It’s total control. You have to just slow down.”

Painting Time: Horizons, Tides, and Rhythms

O’Dwyer’s artwork centers around the concept of time. She paints horizons, timelines, and tides, capturing the ebb and flow of moments. “I paint horizons and timelines. I paint tides, like ebbs and flows and rhythms. Like music, like a beat. Each of them is almost like, you recognize, it’s a period of time. That’s what I paint, I just try to paint time,” she says. Her pieces, created in her Dublin home studio, are large-scale acrylic canvases from her “Murmurations” collection, described as dramatic and gorgeous.

From Fine Art to Podcasting

While O’Dwyer studied fine art at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT) in Dún Laoghaire, she has gained recent recognition as the co-presenter of the popular podcasts “The Creep Dive” and “Stop the Madness”. Despite finding academic performance challenging, she maintained a broad range of interests, a trait her parents encouraged.

O’Dwyer’s journey reflects a continuous exploration of grief, creativity, and the search for equilibrium in a fast-paced world.