Emma Brennan (She/Her) is an interdisciplinary artist who works predominantly in performative practices which include multi-media installation, moving image and collaborative processes. Originally from Dublin, she is now based In Belfast. Brennan is a former Co-Director and Chairperson of Catalyst Arts and a current studio member of Flax Art Studios Belfast. She has recently been chosen as one of the BBeyond performance collective’s new commissioned artists of 2021 to present a new work to be shown as part of the Cathedral Arts Festival. Brennan was also invited to perform as part of the Belfast International Festival of Performance Art in 2021. Alongside these performances she is working towards exhibiting work in the Glór gallery, Ennis, Co. Clare in an upcoming show curated by Moran Been-Noon.

At the core of my practice is the persistent draw of the material of dough. With the unyielding bond between it and me, the relationship with this material is not just physical, it is also emotional, spiritual and political. The incorporation of dough into my work holds both ancestral and sentimental value. In capturing the processes of this material, in all of it’s alchemic, formal and sensory properties, I explore the complexities of the creation of a living, breathing thing.

My work is currently occupied with the cyclical processes of breathing/living and is formed upon the four pillars of; gestation, birth, life and death. My practice is moving towards a body of work specific to how these pillars relate to the female form. I am thinking about this within the context of Ireland (both currently and historically) and then more intimately where she stands within it, not only as artist and creator but also as a queer, Irish, female-identfying, living/breathing being.

My practice is concerned with finding balance within the contradictions of the transient and the fixed. Through process-based methods I explore the space between the two, where magic and ritual, landscape and the body all fold in on one another. My current research concerns feminist readings of Pagan Ireland, exploring the ritualistic, mythological and traditional practices through the pillars outlined above. By comparing these practices to the Ireland, my work is considering an Ireland that may give rise to an apostate future.

Emma Brennan Artist