attitude. 

JBC: As an unconventional, self-taught artist,

which of your pieces has given you the most personal satisfaction?

FD: Just being a functioning and financially stable artist is the most satisfying thing simply because I never thought I was going to get there. Self-doubts about my ability plagued me all my  life and it wasn’t easy to

suddenly switch that off.

JBC: How did you select your artist ‘tag name’?

FD: Fin is an abbreviated version of my real

name: Finbarr. DAC stands for Dragon

Armoury Creative; it was the name of my personal portfolio website before I became an artist.

JBC: When you begin a new commission, is the end result usually similar to the original stencil or does the piece change organically

as you work?

FD: The stencil is simply the jumping off point. Although I spend a lot of time cutting

intricate stencils, the finished piece of work

looks nothing like the original at all… and

that’s deliberate. I wanted to find a way of being a stencil artist like no other and now I have. The fact that I spend so much time painting a piece after the stencil is finished means that’s it’s virtually impossible to do the same thing twice.