Creating The Heads

From Blank Forms to Fragments of Self

Seven heads.

Seven very different explorations of what can exist beneath the surface of the human mind.

But before they became Anxiety, Addiction, Dementia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Schizophrenia, Depression and Bipolar, they began much more simply.

As forms waiting to be transformed.

Creating The Heads — Fragments of Self meant working across sculpture, painting and mixed media, building not only what could be seen from the outside, but finding ways to suggest what might be happening within.

Faces changed.

Surfaces were painted.

Heads were opened.

Objects were constructed, altered and embedded.

Copper, chains, mirrors, pathways, cages and other materials gradually became part of seven very different sculptures.

Some ideas worked immediately.

Others changed considerably as I made them.

And, as so often happens in my work, solving one problem usually created another.

This gallery follows that process.

Not what each finished head means — that story belongs in the Artist Journal.

This is simply how they came to life.

Scroll through the photographs and watch The Heads take shape.

Early concept sketches by Julia O’Sullivan showing the original design ideas for The Disorderly Demise of the Cerebral Cortex sculptural heads.

Before There Were Heads

Before the wire, the clay, the paint and all the experimentation, there was a sketch.
This was where I first began trying to work out what these strange heads might become.
The drawings captured my initial ideas for their forms, the structures around them and some of the elements I imagined incorporating into the finished sculptures.
Not everything survived.
Some ideas developed.
Some changed completely.
Others disappeared somewhere along the way.
And that's fairly typical of how I work.
I don't regard an initial sketch as a set of instructions that must be followed. It gives me somewhere to begin. Once I start physically making something, the materials, practical problems and new ideas begin pushing the work in different directions.
So if you compare these early drawings with the finished Heads, you'll find things that look familiar — and others that never made it beyond the page.
This wasn't the plan for the finished collection.
It was the beginning of the conversation.

Early construction of a sculptural head by Julia O’Sullivan, formed from wire mesh moulded over the artist’s own face and covered with paper and PVA.

It Started With My Face

The heads began with sculpting wire, moulded directly over a human face to create their basic form.
My original plan was to use my husband Pat as the model. Unfortunately, when I started forming the wire over his face, he was a little too fragile for the experience, so that idea didn't last very long.
I used my own face instead.
From there, the wire structures were covered with a mixture of PVA, paper and, quite honestly, God knows what else I threw in at the time.
This was completely new territory for me.
I wasn't simply making sculptures. I was trying to create my own three-dimensional canvases that I could eventually paint in oils.
There was no ready-made surface waiting for me.
I had to create everything.
The structure.
The face.
The surface.
And eventually, the painting upon it.
I was experimenting as I went, building and refining the heads until I had created a surface that could become both sculpture and oil painting.
Looking back, using my own face actually became far more fitting.
These sculptures were being created from my perspective — my attempt, at that point in my life, to interpret and give physical form to experiences of the human mind.
So before they became seven very different explorations of what can happen beneath the surface, they all began with the same face.
Mine.

Sculptural head in progress as layers of paper, clay and mixed materials are added to refine the facial features and create a three-dimensional painting surface.

Finding the Face

More goop.
There really isn't a more sophisticated way of describing this stage.
Once the basic wire form had been covered, I began building up the surface and refining the features underneath. Layer by layer, I worked on the shape of the nose, mouth, eyes and contours of the face, gradually turning the rough shell into something recognisably human.
I was still learning what this strange homemade canvas would allow me to do.
Too much material and I could lose the features. Too little and I wouldn't have the surface I needed for the oils later.
So this stage was really about finding the balance between sculpting a face and creating a surface I could eventually paint.
Slowly, a face began to emerge from the goop.

Seven handmade sculptural heads drying outside in the New Zealand sunshine after multiple layers of paper, clay, PVA and mixed materials were applied.

Basking in the New Zealand Sun

By this point, all of the heads were beginning to look like an army of faces — although here they were simply basking in the New Zealand sunshine.
Getting them to this stage had taken around a month.
Each head needed layer after layer of paper, clay, PVA and various other materials, with drying time between stages as I gradually built them up to the right thickness and strength.
It was a much bigger process than simply creating a shape.
I was constructing the framework for everything that would come later — effectively making my own three-dimensional canvases from scratch.
They needed to be strong enough to withstand everything I planned to do to them, but still retain the facial features I had spent so long refining.
So there was a lot of building, drying, adding, refining... and waiting.
Fortunately, the New Zealand sun made a rather useful drying rack.
A month of work, and I still hadn't started the paintings.

Close-up of cracks developing across the clay surface of a handmade sculptural head during the early construction process.

And Then It Cracked...

Hmmm.
After all that building, layering, drying and refining, the clay began to crack.
Not exactly what I had planned.
These heads were going to become the foundation for months of further work, so I couldn't simply hope the cracks would behave themselves. The finished surface needed to be smooth, stable and strong enough that nothing was going to crack, flake or fall off later.
I had created the form.
Now I had to work out how to make it last.
This was one of those moments when making something completely new meant stopping, researching materials and finding a solution to a problem I hadn't anticipated.
Back to the research.

Finished blank sculptural head after the surface was sealed, hardened and smoothed in preparation for oil painting.

Problem Solved

Research paid off.
I found a product that could be painted over the entire surface of the heads, sealing all those layers together and hardening everything underneath.
Can I remember what it was?
Not a chance.
But it worked.
Every head was given a complete coating. The cracks were stabilised, nothing was going to fall off, and the rough surfaces I had been battling with could finally be worked into something smooth and solid.
For the first time, I had what I had been trying to create from the beginning:
a strong, smooth, three-dimensional canvas ready for oil paint.
The framework was finished.
Now I could finally start turning these identical faces into seven very different heads.

Artist Julia O’Sullivan playfully holding a finished blank sculptural head over her face after completing the first stage of construction.

Stage One Complete — I Had a Head!

After a month of wire, paper, clay, PVA, mysterious mixtures, cracking surfaces, research, sealing, sanding and plenty of experimentation, the first stage was finally complete.
I had created the heads.
Naturally, the sensible thing to do at this point was put one over my own face.
Having worked as a laboratory technician, there was something about this entire process that appealed to that side of me. I had spent weeks experimenting with materials, mixing things together, testing what worked, discovering what didn't and solving problems as they appeared.
By this point, I was beginning to feel rather like a mad scientist building heads in a laboratory.
It was also a strangely appropriate full-circle moment. Each head had begun by being moulded over my face, and now here I was disappearing back inside one.
More importantly, I finally had what I had set out to create: seven strong, smooth, three-dimensional canvases ready for oil paint.
Everything so far had simply been about creating the surface on which I could make the art.
And that alone had taken about a month.
Stage One was finished.
Now I could finally get the oil paints out.

First layers of oil paint being mapped onto one of Julia O’Sullivan’s handmade sculptural heads, creating a slightly sinister face.

Stage Two — The Painting Begins

And suddenly, things started looking a little sinister.
With the construction finally complete, I could begin working in the medium I knew best: oil paint.
At this stage, I wasn't concerned with fine detail. I was mapping out the general areas of the face, establishing the composition and beginning to work out where everything would eventually sit.
Painting on these heads was very different from working on a conventional canvas. The surface curved away from me in every direction, so the image had to work around the contours of the face rather than across a flat rectangle.
These first layers were really a map.
A starting point for everything I would build on top.
Although, looking at the photograph now, it does appear as though my mad scientist phase had taken a slightly darker turn.

Interior surfaces of the handmade sculptural heads during the first stages of oil painting, showing the curved three-dimensional canvases.

But I Wasn't Only Painting the Outside

The faces were only half of the canvas.
I had deliberately created the heads so that I could work inside them as well as outside them.
So while the exterior gradually developed its own painted surface, I also began mapping out the interiors.
This gave me something a conventional canvas never could.
I had an outside and an inside.
A visible surface and a hidden one.
At this stage, just as with the faces, I was laying down the first areas of oil paint and establishing where everything would eventually go.
The details and meaning would come later.
For now, I was still building the foundations.
I had created my canvases. Now I could paint on every side of them.

Dementia Head by Julia O’Sullivan during the painting process as layers of oil paint begin developing across the sculpted face.

Building the Layers — Dementia

With the initial mapping complete, I began building the oil paint in layers.
This is the Dementia Head beginning to develop. The rough areas of colour and form established earlier are gradually becoming more defined as I work back into the surface.
Like a traditional oil painting, each new layer gives me something to respond to in the next.
The difference, of course, is that my canvas has a face.

Julia O’Sullivan’s husband Pat working in the garage, routing wood to create the individually designed bases for the seven sculptural heads.

Meanwhile, I Put Pat to Work...

While I was busy painting heads, Pat was hard at work in the garage like a busy little elf.

He loved routing the wood and, I think, rather enjoyed the opportunity to put his own stamp on the series.

The woodwork was another experiment.

I had never really worked with wood before, which meant I also had absolutely no loyalty to the conventional way of doing things. I knew what I wanted the finished structures to look like, but how I was actually going to achieve that was another matter.

So, in true Julia fashion, I winged it.

I designed the pieces as I went, trying things, changing things and finding solutions when something didn't quite work. Pat brought his skills to the routing and helped turn my slightly unconventional ideas into something that could actually be built.

It became another collaboration between us — me coming up with ideas and Pat helping me work out how on earth we were going to make them.

And judging by this photograph, he was quite happy in his new role.

Pat constructing and refining the bespoke wooden bases designed to support Julia O’Sullivan’s seven mental health sculptures.

My Long-Suffering Muse

Pat was still hard at work on the bases.
He has always been my muse and, over the years, has been remarkably accommodating when it comes to being volunteered for whatever my art happens to require.
Sometimes that means cutting and routing wood.
Sometimes it means posing for a painting.
Sometimes it means being sent into the garage because I've had another idea and need something made.
Generally, he takes it all remarkably well.
The one exception, apparently, was having sculpting wire formed over his face.
In fairness, I may have been a little heavy-handed. I could quite happily scratch the metal foil over my own face without giving it a second thought, but Pat clearly had rather more delicate ideas about how a face should be treated.
So I became the face of the Heads, while Pat became an important part of what was happening behind them.
Muse, model, woodworker and occasional artistic guinea pig — although apparently even Pat has his limits.

The Final Piece of the Puzzle

The heads were painted. The bases were taking shape.
Now I had to work out how to join the two together.
Each head was designed to sit on its own moulded metal support. I had the bars individually hammered by a metalworker in Waihi, and just like the heads themselves, no two were exactly alike.
That was deliberate.
By this point, each sculpture had developed such a distinct identity that I didn't want to place them all onto identical supports. The metalwork and wooden bases needed to become part of the individual design too.
The Bipolar base, for example, was divided in two — one side ash, the other walnut — joined together with metal. The other bases were similarly designed around the identity of the head they would eventually support.
Of course, designing something and actually getting it to work are two entirely different things.
Bending and shaping the metal wasn't easy, and there were plenty of moments when what I had imagined didn't immediately translate into something that could physically hold a head.
But that had really been the story of the entire project.
Wire that needed strengthening.
Clay that cracked.
Surfaces that needed sealing.
Wood I'd never worked with before.
Metal that didn't necessarily want to bend where I wanted it to.
Every stage presented another problem to solve.
And that's part of making art that I rather enjoy.
If something doesn't work, you go back to the drawing board, look at the problem differently and work out another way of doing it.
Eventually, everything came together.
Seven heads.
Seven painted interiors.
Seven painted exteriors.
Seven individual bases.
Seven metal supports.
What had begun with some sculpting wire pressed over my face had finally become The Disorderly Demise of the Cerebral Cortex.

The Heads Were Finished. But Their Stories Weren't.

The making was complete.

But everything you have seen in this gallery — the painted faces, the hidden interiors, the different materials, the bases and the objects incorporated into each sculpture — was there for a reason.

Nothing was simply decoration.

Each head was my attempt to give physical form to something that cannot easily be seen: what might be happening beneath the surface of the human mind.

Some of these works came from experiences very close to me.

Others required me to stand outside an experience I could never claim as my own, researching, listening and trying to understand it from the position of an observer.

And that distinction became an important part of this collection too.

So now that you've seen how I made the Heads, it's time to go beneath their surfaces.

Continue to the Artist Journal

The Disorderly Demise of the Cerebral Cortex

Discover the personal stories, research, symbolism and thinking behind Anxiety, Addiction, Dementia, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Schizophrenia, Depression and Bipolar — and why I chose to represent them in the way that I did.

Jupigio-Artwork-Gallery

Rare - Unusual - Unforgettable

Creating The Heads

From Blank Forms to Fragments of Self

The Heads Were Finished. But Their Stories Weren't.

Continue to the Artist Journal