Ian O’Brien

Ian is a senior at UNCA and NC native. He grew up in central NC near Chapel Hill before enrolling at UNC Asheville in 2019. Initially a student in the Mass Communications department, Ian switched to New Media to study animation and currently serves as the department’s animation and video tutor and assistant. Ian is passionate about art, animation, filmmaking, and storytelling, and has worked in various other fields including graphic design, videography, and motion graphics. His goal is to create work which is sincere and unadulterated, and built on substance as much as style. As a queer man, he is inspired by cultural experiences both intrinsic and extrinsic to his personal identity, and aims to understand the world through both the immediate community he finds himself in as well as in the greater community of the world.