"Angela Brennan has been making abstract paintings since the late 1980s, and the status of her chosen format has shifted ground several times over this period. She also makes figurative and text-based works, and there is a productive exchange between her abstractions and these other modes of working. The stylised forms of her portraits, for example, often look poised to dissolve into patterned shapes, whilst her abstract compositions sometimes name-check material that can appear incongruous as subject matter. Signalling an inner life made up of reading, looking, and listening, these references are wide in scope, encompassing popular culture, art history, philosophy, and more. The beguiling citations scattered throughout Brennan’s work build a potent self-image of the artist, reflecting her various interests, beliefs, and preferences. Brennan’s references productively complicate her painted imagery, provoking the viewer to engage with the work in new and unknown ways."
—Graf, Michael, ‘Angela Brennan: Content Management’, Angela Brennan: 19 Desires and One Belief, Ed. Brennan, A., 3-ply, 2019, pp. 51-52.
This book will be launched in Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Art Book Fair on 17 March 2019. Keynote by artist Angela Brennan, book designer Lucy Russell, and Dr Kyla McFarlane, Curator Academic Programs (Research), Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
This book will be launched in Sydney at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in May 2019. Details to be announced.
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Informed by a degree in Fine Art Angela Brennan (b.1960) has been creating modern, abstract canvases exploding with colour for over 30 years. During that time she has also worked with text paintings, figuration and now ceramics. Brennan has exhibited extensively in Australia and overseas. Selected solo exhibitions include Angela Brennan: Lounging in the doorways of two worlds, Monash Art Design & Architecture Gallery, Melbourne (2019); Forms of Life, Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne (2017); The Garden of Earthly Delights (with Glenn Barkley), Westspace, Melbourne (2016); On a round ball, China Art Projects, Hong Kong (2013); To whom Achilles swiftest of the swift replied, Orexart, Auckland (2011); the survey exhibition Angela Brennan: Every Morning I Wake Up on the Wrong Side of Capitalism, Monash University Museum of Art, Melbourne (2006) and Paintings and Drawings, de Recourt Art, The Gallery on Cork Street, London (2005).
Group exhibitions include Beyond Reason, QUT Art Museum, Brisbane (2018); All We Can’t See, Yellow House, Sydney (2018); Abstraction: Celebrating Australian women abstract artists, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (2017) which toured to Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria (2017), Newcastle Art Gallery, NSW (2017), Cairns Art Gallery, QLD (2017), Tweed Regional Gallery, NSW (2018) and QUT Art Museum, Brisbane (2018); Korea International Art Fair 2016 / ART SEOUL, Seoul COEX Hall A & B, Korea (2016); Shut Up and Paint, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2016); Mr President…, Parkside Avenue, Brooklyn, New York (2014); Zurich Art Fair, Zurich, Switzerland (2004); Snap Freeze: Still Life Now, Tarrawarra Museum of Art (2007) and Arts d’Australie, Air France, Paris, France (2000).
Angela Brennan has also participated in several artist in residency programs including The University of Sydney Archaeological Excavations of the Paphos Theatre Site, Cyprus (2016); Artist in Residence, Strathnairn Arts, Canberra (2016); Australia Council Studio, Rome (2015) and the Studio residency, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2008). Awards include the Arts Victoria Project Grant (2015) and Melbourne Savage Club Art Prize (2002). Brennan is also currently under examination for her PhD at Monash University. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections worldwide.
Angela Brennan has been exhibiting with Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery since 1993. Celestial – Terrestrial will be her 12th solo exhibition with the gallery.
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