Cecily Brennan
Cecily Brennan is an Irish artist born in Galway in 1955. She graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and has shown extensively nationally and internationally. Her work is held in all of the major Irish public and private collections.
Cecily Brennan’s work addresses psychological damage and recovery, both metaphorically, in landscape, in depictions of skin diseases and their treatment, and in basic science demonstrations, and directly, through film and video work, considering grief, self-harm, melancholia and psychosis.
Her practice encompasses film, photography, drawing, printmaking, painting (in gesso, oil and watercolour), casting, and sound.
She is currently making a body of work, centred on the fictional lives of SIX MEN which attempts to describe the utter isolation experienced by sufferers of psychotic breakdown.
She was elected to membership of Aosdána in 1991 and is currently Chair of its organising committee, the Toscaireacht. She helped establish the Visual Arts Centre, a shared studio space, and served on various Boards and committees associated with the arts in Ireland. She was a founder of the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eight Amendment, which was part of the successful campaign to guarantee reproductive rights to Irish women.
Recent shows in 2025 include PRESSURE a survey show at the Glucksman Gallery, Cork. SIX MEN Paintings and drawings at the Taylor Galleries, Dublin and a screening of her new film SIX MEN November at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin.
She is represented by the Taylor Galleries in Dublin.