A love of art in childhood and encouragement by school teachers to study art has led to a dream of being a tattooist in Berlin for Visual Art graduate
Caoláin Power graduated with a BA (Hons) in Visual Art from WIT in 2017. We spoke to him at Conferring 2017.
Where did your journey to study Visual Art begin?
Ever since I was a kid I was really interested. I think it stems from me being dyslexic. From an early age I’d always be sketching stuff and I wanted to be a biologist originally but because of the difficulty with reading and spelling I feel I inched more towards creative things like visuals such as plants and animals always – they always intrigued me. I had books on taxidermy and botany. In secondary school I picked languages but my teachers [in CBS, Tramore] forced me to do the art because I was really strong at it. From there I went to WCFE and did a portfolio course there for a year and then decided to come to WIT to do the Visual Art course for the four years.
What’s your art genre?
When I came in I wanted to do illustration. Through doing this course they really open up your mind. You have to do video work, you have to do performance art, they don’t specialise straight away in the one subject so it’s really great you get that opportunity. For me I want to do tattooing. Through doing this course I’ve learnt photography, lino block, sculpture, so it’s a great course to open up and learn genres of art.
What next?
At the moment I’ve set up a jewellery business and hope to go to Berlin and start tattooing over there.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
I feel it’s such a small number that you get good one-on-one time with the lecturers. They will help you with everything. If you need materials or anything else outside of the course they will do their best to help you out. I feel with this course it’s the one-on-one contact you get with lecturers that’s so important.
This interview was conducted during conferring 2017
SETU Waterford, Cork Road, Waterford City, 
