ÓSCAR MASCAREÑAS (b. 1975)
Óscar Mascareñas is a transcendental poet working in the fields of sound, light, movement and letters, based in Clare, Ireland. He is interested in observation and attention, the poetics of everything, the power, clarity and completeness of knowing by oneself, the future of artistic inquiry and education, and the materiality of poetry which lies at the centre of observation.
PhD in Music and MA in Chant and Ritual Song (University of Limerick, Ireland); BSc in Industrial Physics and Engineering (ITESM, Mexico), Óscar has published work in Europe, Africa and the Americas for the past 28 years, and collaborated with several artists and art companies from the fields of dance, music, theatre, visual arts and film. These include dance artist Mary Nunan, singer/songwriter Iarla Ó Lionáird, composers Mel Mercier and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, voice artist Steve Boyland, improvisers Danny McCarthy & Mick O'Shea from The Quiet Club, performance artist Nigel Rolfe, actor Conor Lovett and director Judy Hegarty-Lovett from Gare St Lazare theatre company, and Tipperary Dance Company, amongst many others.
In 2023 Óscar was commissioned by Diatribe Records in Dublin to create images for Ann Cleare’s 2024 album An Cúigiú Cúige. The photographs were taken at the Hill of Uisneach in Co. Westmeath. The images feature in the Zeigeist Irland 24 catalogue, which collects pictures and testimonies from the year-long programme of over 400 events that took place in over 100 towns and cities across Germany.
Two pictures from the series ‘Riding on the wind’, which appear in his book Like drinking water, featured in the Curator’s Choice at the Hunt Museum in Limerick City in February 2024. One of Óscar’s images in the new series The Likeness of Us features in the Hunt Museum’s inaugural Open Submission Exhibition between December 2025 and February 2026 in Limerick. Óscar regularly exhibits his photographic work with his wife Elaine Tucker at the Local Art & Craft Pop Up Gallery in Limerick City.
Óscar has written two books, Meditations on the Poetics of Experience (2020), and Like drinking water (2024), published by ERÓS, and is currently preparing a new book on radical pedagogy to be published in 2026. In the field of sound Óscar has created two albums, Songs for Jackson Pollock, produced by ERÓS in 2018/2019; and Burrenscapes, produced by Diatribe Records in 2022. His sonic work is prolific and covers a breadth of instrumental ensembles, compositional approaches and performances. His current focus is on improvisation as a tool for insightful observation through sound and silence. This is applied in AIRE, the practice he leads with composer and ambient guitarist Tony Monahan, which has received support from the Arts Council of Ireland and has been presented at the Irish World Academy in the University of Limerick, the Hunt Museum in Limerick City, outdoors in the Burren in Co. Clare, and at The Complex in Dublin City.
As a scholar, Óscar has written numerous articles on Gregorian chant, poetry, pedagogy and philosophy. His inquiry covers a wide range of subjects and disciplines: from poetry, composition and performance in contemporary practice, to monochromatic photography, Gregorian chant, Zen, Eastern and Western philosophy and radical pedagogy.
Óscar is Associate Professor of Music at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in the University of Limerick, where he lectures and researches in creative process and trans-disciplinary practice. He also works independently as an artist, pedagogue and performer internationally.
