About
Meg O’Shea is an Eisner award-winning and Ignatz award-nominated Korean adoptee comic maker, educator and research assistant based in Sydney, Australia (unceded Gadigal and Wangal Country).
She makes largely autobiographical and non-fiction work that has appeared in The Nib, The Lily, Liminal Magazine, The Comics Journal and anthologies including the Eisner Award-winning Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival, Opposights: Alternative Comic Art Scenes from Australia and Portugal, Comic Sans, Steady Diet and The Threads That Connect Us. She has exhibited comic, animation and film work internationally, taught comic making to university students, developed and delivered comics programs to high school-aged students from migrant and refugee backgrounds with STARTTS, and art programs to elementary-aged students in Korea. She is also a research assistant for Folio, a project that aims to map, archive and promote Australian comics from the last forty years, along the diverse artists and communities that created them.
Meg is currently working on a long-form work based on her experiences as the Asian child of white parents in Australia, a recent period of living in Korea, and a failed search for her Korean mother. (Spoiler: a lot of soju is involved.)
CV
Selected comics
2023 – “Sample” (Bomb Magazine)
2022 – “Third Time’s a Charm” (Liminal Magazine)
2022 – “Overlay” (The Comics Journal)
2022 – “Routine” (The Offing Magazine)
2021 – “Paper Fictions, Social Realities“ feature for The Nib Magazine #9 (The Nib)
2021 – “Screen Share” in Opposights: Alternative Comic Scenes from Australia and Portugal (Silent Army)
2021 – “Tigers of the Korean Peninsula” in Immediately Before the End of Everything (Pinch Press)
2020 – “Human Resources” in The Nib Magazine #7 (The Nib)
2020 – “Sight Lines” (Liminal Magazine)
2020 – Untitled Comic (commission for 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art)
2020 – Untitled Comic in Steady Diet (Blueprint Comics)
2020 – Untitled Comic in Threads That Connect Us (Peach Bun Press)
2019 – “The Response” in The Nib Magazine #5 (The Nib)
2019 – “자경” zine insert for Going Down Swinging #40
2019 – “Asian Girls” in Drawing Power, Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival (Abrams Books)
2019 – “Giant” in Comic Sans #2
2018 – Untitled Comic in The Lifted Brow issue 38
2018 – “Korean Cartoonists Respond to the Peace Process” (The Nib)
2018 – “80s, 90s and Shit Stuff” in Meet Me in the Pit #1 (Blueprint Comics)
2018 – “Particular Inheritance” in The Suburban Review #9
2018 – “A Part of Me is Still Unknown” (The Nib)
2017 – “Some Girls” for Minicomic of the Month Club (self published)
Selected exhibitions and events
2023 – Australian Adoption Literary Festival Mixed Genre Panel panellist (Online)
2023 – Toolkits: Graphic Narratives guest speaker (Online)
2023 – Comic Reading at International Korean Adoptee Association event (Seoul, South Korea)
2023 – Amplifying Our Voices: Research & Creatives Insights Panel at Korean Adoptees in Australia Network Commune (Melbourne, Australia)
2022 – “Behind the Lines: The Year in Political Cartoons” Exhibitor (Canberra, Australia)
2022 – “Behind the Lines: A Night With the Artists” panellist (NSW Parliament House)
2022 – “Drawing Your Own Bed and Lying in It: Comics and the Autographic Turn” panellist (Addi Road Writers’ Festival)
2021 – “Behind the Lines: The Year in Political Cartoons” Exhibitor and Researcher (Canberra, Australia)
2021 – “We Are Many” group exhibition and panel discussion (online, AHL Foundation)
2021 – “Off the Page: Design, Illustration and Authorship in Contemporary Comics” panel discussion (online, 4A Gallery)
2021 – “Still Alive” launch “Read to Me” comic reading (Sydney, Australia)
2021 – Goodspace Gallery “6th Birthday” group exhibition (Sydney, Australia)
2020 – Guest artist for City of Melbourne’s “Rainy Day Comics” program (online)
2020 – Gasamrojieul “No-Show” solo exhibition (Seoul, South Korea)
2019 – TactileBosch Lounge “Performativity” group exhibition (Cardiff, Wales)
2019 – wwwspace “Performativity” group exhibition (Seoul, South Korea)
2019 – I Art Seoul “Adoptees Kreate” group exhibition (Seoul, South Korea)
2019 – Gallery 25, Edith Cowan University “Sequence and Consequence” group exhibition (Perth, Australia)
2019 – Alternative Artspace IPO “Mayfly 19” group exhibition (Seoul, South Korea)
2019 – “Electric Cinema Short Film Festival” (Seoul, South Korea)
2019 – Goodspace Gallery “Zine-o-Matic” group exhibition (Sydney, Australia)
2018 – Small Press Zine Fair “Read to Me” (Hobart, Australia)
2018 – Fairfield Museum “A Night at the Museum” Read to Me comic reading (Sydney, Australia)
2017 – Zine There Done That “Read to Me” comic reading (Thirroul, Australia)
2017 – Comic Con-versation “Read to Me” comic reading (Sydney, Australia)
2017 – Self-Made: Zines and Artist Books group exhibition (Melbourne, Australia)
2024 – Comic Art Workshop website illustrations and design
2023 – Mural for Other Worlds’ Zine Fair (Newtown, NSW)
2023 – New Renters’ Toolkit comics and illustrations for NSW Tenants’ Union
2023 – T-shirt for Korean Adoptees in Australia Network
2022 – Malthouse Theatre “K-Box Adoptee Takeover Night” promotional image
2019 – “Who to Serve and Protect” (Workers solidarity #5)
2019 – Accompanying “Murder Capital” by Aimee Knight (The Lifted Brow #43)
2019 – Cocktail menu design for Knox St Bar
2018 – Sock design (Megafem)
2018 – Accompanying “Shirt Dresses that Look A Little Too Much Like Shirts So That It Looks Like You Forgot to Put Pants On (Love Will Save The Day) by Elizabeth Tan (The Lifted Brow issue 37)
2017 – Accompanying “The False Promises of the Apolitical Centre” by Mark Dean (The Lifted Brow issue 35)
2017 – “Vanishing Act” based on a story by Eric Myers (Australian Broadcasting Corporation/The Nib)
2017 – Wall decals and promotional materials for “Self-Made, Zines and Artist Books” touring exhibition (State Library Victoria)
2016 – Accompanying “How Piracy Became a Cause Celebre in the World of Academics” by Liam O’Donoghue (Motherboard)
2015 – Radio With Pictures’ “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow” by Michelle Law (ABC Radio National)
Media
2023 – ‘Iyagi’ short documentary (KOZZIECOM)
2022 – Interview on ZINE! (Yarra Valley Radio)
2022 – Interview on The Glasshouse (Triple R radio)
2021 – “Q&A With Cartoonist Meg O’Shea” (Museum of Australian Democracy)
2019 – “#MeToo-inspired comics anthology shines light on women cartoonists’ experiences of sexual harassment, assault” by Teresa Tan (ABC Arts)
2019 – “Meg O’Shea” Adopted Feels Podcast episode 14 produced by Hana Crisp and Ryan Gustaffson
2019 – “A stranger told her he had an ‘Asian fetish.’ Then things escalated.” by Nneka McGuire (The Lily)
2019 – Review: Drawing Power features vital & evocative visual stories of sexual violence, by Samantha Puc (The Beat)
2019 – “Drawing Power – Review”, by Robert Kirby (The Comics Journal)
2019 – “All The Best” produced by Ryan Pemberton (FBI Radio, Sydney)
2019 – “Or It Didn’t Happen” podcast produced by Zacha Rosen (FBI Radio, Sydney)
2018 – “Ten of Australia’s Best Literary Comics” by Gabriel Clark (The Conversation)
2018 – Featured artist on the Cartoonists of Color Database
2018 – Featured artist on the Queer Cartoonists Database
2018 – “Q&A with Meg O’Shea” (The Suburban Review)
Awards, Nominations, Residencies & Grants
2023 – Australia Council for the Arts grant for development of “On Paper”
2023 – Create NSW grant for development of “On Paper”
2022 – Intercountry Adoptee and Family Support Service Small Grant (for zine making workshop for adoptees, with Hana Crisp and Ryan Gustafsson)
2022 – Comic Art Workshop Residency
2022 – Comic Arts Awards of Australia shortlist (for Pyeongtaek)
2020 – “Best Anthology” Eisner Award (for Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival anthology, edited by Diane Noomin)
2020 – Bronze Ledger Award (for Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment and Survival anthology, edited by Diane Noomin)
2018 – “Outstanding Online Comic” Ignatz Award nomination (for A Part of Me is Still Unknown)
Selected Professional Experience
Comic Art Workshop / Co-Director
2023 – PRESENT
Established in 2015, the Comic Art Workshop (CAW) is a volunteer-run organisation dedicated to supporting comic artists working on ambitious projects. Its main focus is a biennial residency, in which 14 artists travel to a remote location to workshop their in-progress projects, assisted by master artists and others in support roles. Fionn McCabe and I are organising 2024’s residency at Bundanon, NSW, supported by CAW alumni.
Folio Contemporary Australian Comics 1980 – 2020: A New History / Research Assistant
JUNE 2021 – PRESENT
As part of a team led by academics from the University of Melbourne, University of Technology Sydney and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, in partnership with The National Library of Australia, Australia Council for the Arts and Craig Walker Design, I assist in research activities for an Australia Research Council project that aims to map, archive and promote Australian comics and graphic novels produced in the last forty years, and the artists and communities who gave rise to them.
Museum of Australian Democracy / Researcher
AUGUST 2021 – DECEMBER 2021
In order to meet the museum’s aims to reflect a more diverse range of cartooning practices and creators, I participated in research in, and outreach to, artists for inclusion in MoAD’s annual “Behind the Lines: The Year in Political Cartoons” exhibition.
“Nalara” Little Library / Art teacher
JUNE 2019 – AUGUST 2020
Planned and delivered an after-school art program for children from elementary to early middle school age in Seoul, South Korea.
Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) / Comic Program Facilitator
MARCH 2018-NOVEMBER 2018
Developed a program for and instructed comic making classes for students from refugee and migrant backgrounds at a Sydney high school, in close collaboration school and STARTTS staff.
University of Technology Sydney / Student Demonstrator
MARCH 2015 – JUNE 2016
Assisted in the delivery of a comic-making unit for undergraduate university students.
Education
Master of Animation (Narrative Media)
University of Technology Sydney 2014 – 2016
Bachelor of Visual Arts with First Class Honours
Sculpture, Performance and Installation Studio
Sydney College of the Arts 2008 – 2011