Lorraine Brennan is a major contemporary figurative painter residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up in New York then Mississippi within a large family of 9 siblings, from a early age she used art to explore the complex interrelationships between the human figure and the emotional human experience.
Lorraine creates in figurative oil paintings on large canvases, exploring movements, expressions, spaces, and colors. Sensuality and intimacy are major theme in Lorraine’s work, featuring the contours and curves of the human form. It celebrates the everyday moments of human experience—whether riding, swimming, lounging or getting ready for an evening out.
One distinctive element of her paintings is the use of intricate pressings, a technique she developed in printmaking and then to canvas. The pressings give her figures subtle patterns and designs, as applied to their skin and surrounding spaces, drawing the viewer’s attention to the timeless beauty of human skin, it’s textures and tones, with all of it’s humanly unique flaws and imperfections.
A resident of Atlanta since 1999, Lorraine’s work particularly captures the ascension of the city as a “mecca” for African-American life. Her work celebrates the culture of Black Atlanta from everyday street scenes to the implied social and political struggles as expressed through body language and facial expressions. Many of her works explore the boundaries between public and private spaces such as car interiors and porches, providing viewers with an intimate glimpse into the beauty of everyday life. In this way, her art elevates “presence” to a population that has been historically ignored in America, speaking directly to the viewer of the internal and external beauty of several generations of African-Americans. Her subject matter transcends age and gender.
Lorraine holds a bachelor’s degree in painting and printmaking from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in painting and printmaking from Clemson University. She has won several juried awards, including two recent international awards. Lorraine Brennan is a globally significant artist as her work reaches new audiences and resonates with universal emotions and personal experiences of people of color around the world.
My name is Lorraine Brennan.
I was born in upstate NY. At age ten we moved to Mississippi. In culture shock, steeped in the south and with yankee parents, I began my new life in a new world. Coming from such a big loving family with eight siblings, has deeply effected my perspective. I am enamored with the complexity of the human figure and it’s psyche. Having northern and southern experiences has influenced my subject matter as well. The Riding series is the city girl in me, while the Girls Getting Ready series reflects the hot lazy weekends in the South, that I love.
I fought being a southern girl, but after living down south longer than I had in NY, I had to except it was having it’s way with me. I dreamed of moving back to the place I was taken from: The art mecca of NYC. As a young foolish artist I thought, “Didn’t my parents know I was gonna become an artist? How could they have taken me away from my destiny?” In the middle of life at age 46, I see now that it is the journey, not the destination that has defined the work.
My paintings are modern genre’ scenes of everyday life experiences. I count on the fact that we have universal emotions and experiences. I hope for connections, remembrances, inspiration, and de’ja’ vu, for the viewer.
The Riding Series is about being free: A metaphor for traveling through life. We ride out, flying down the the highway of life, lost in our thoughts, on the way to our next experience.
The Underwater Series is about freedom as well. It has religious overtones. To float, you must let go, release tension, and have faith. Swimming feels like a religious experience to me. I am able to finally calm my mind and just feel the rhythm of the water, floating, bobbing up and down….. inhale…… exhale……. It is the closest I have ever gotten to meditating and the only time I have been able to visualize my father, whom died from colon cancer at a young 58 years old.
All of my work is an Ode’ to the powerful parents who created and raised nine compassionate children. We are spreading the love that she and my father blessed us with. My family experiences have made me the person and artist I am today.
655 Elbert St. SW
Atlanta, GA 30310
404.753.8136
lorrainebrennan970@yahoo.com