My Creative Journey with Rikki O'Neill

An Evening with Rikki O'Neill

An illustrated talk, not a workshop. Rikki takes us through a selection of his images and the stories behind them.

About Rikki

Rikki O'Neill is a Dundee based artist who moves easily between photography, illustration and paint, and this evening is a chance to see where all three meet.

He started out as a cartoonist at D.C. Thomson, drawing hundreds of cartoons for the Sunday Post and illustrating stories for My Weekly. From there he designed greeting cards for companies including Valentines of Dundee, illustrated children's books, and worked for the London agency Bernard Thornton Artists. That background in storytelling through images has stayed with him ever since, and it shows in his photography as much as his illustration.

On the photography side, Rikki is entirely self-taught. Over 40 years he has combined his artistic and photographic eye into images he describes as painterly and illustrative, made to evoke a feeling rather than simply record a scene, and not afraid to be a little different. He is a Master of the Photographic Alliance of Great Britain, on the Scottish Photographic Federation's Roll of Honour, and spent many years chairing the Royal Photographic Society's Visual Arts Associate and Fellowship panel. His photographs have appeared as magazine illustrations and book covers, and he has held ten solo exhibitions.

In 2022 he won the Wraptious Artist Competition, which led to his colourful, atmospheric landscapes appearing across their giftware range, and his public art has included a large penguin sculpture and an Oor Wullie for Wild in Art.

From Mark

I had a good chat with Rikki back in June, and what struck me most was how naturally he talks about an image, less like a technical breakdown and more like telling you a story about a place or a moment. That is exactly what this evening is about. No slides on settings or software, just Rikki sharing work he is proud of and the thinking behind it.