About Us

Welcome to SOC Arts, a web-based platform developed in memory of Sean O’Connor, a talented artist and poet, much loved and missed by his family and friends. 

As a young man, Sean had a bright future ahead of him, but the course of his life changed irrevocably when he was diagnosed in his twenties with schizophrenia. For the next thirty years until his untimely passing in 2016, he continued to pursue his love of the arts, particularly painting, sketching and writing poetry.

It was only when Sean’s family found the lock up where he stored his work, that the true extent of his collection became known.

Subsequently, they entrusted Sean’s entire collection of paintings and poems to his close friends, who set about cataloguing its contents. Everyone agreed that Sean’s work was too good to be hidden away and needed to be seen by a wider audience.

By sharing Sean's art and personal story here, we hope to inspire other artists to submit their work and personal stories to SOC Arts for the opportunity to showcase their work on the “Featured Artists” page.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

-Thomas Merton