Robert Brennan |  | | | Red Carpet |
Robert Brennan, of Easton, CT, will exhibit paintings and constructions from the carpet and monochrome series at the Good News Caf from July 15, 2009, through September 7, 2009.
Brennan s award-winning construction Virgin Landscape, which won first prize in the prestigious Art of the Northeast USA Exhibit, sponsored by the Silvermine Guild of Art, will be among those works on display. Juror Charlotta Kotik, curator of contemporary art at the Brooklyn Museum, described Brennan s work as highly original and expressive.
In 2007, art critic Barbara McAdam of Art News Magazine selected Brennan s work for an artist s grant and solo exhibit at the New Art Center in New York City. In June 2007, the Viridian Artists Annual Competition and Exhibition in New York City selected Variations, a stretched canvas construction, for inclusion in its show. Recent exhibits include the Contemporary Artists Network Annual Exhibits in 2007 and 2008.
Brennan received his Batchelor s Degree in Art from Southern Connecticut State University and his MA and Advanced Doctoral Studies from Columbia University. He has taught at Jersey City State College, as well as the University of Bridgeport, where he served as a professor of visual arts and Art Department Chair. In addition, he has taught at the Silvermine School of Art and was the K-12 Coordinator of Art for the Darien School System.
Brennan has served as juror for amateur and professional art exhibits such as the Connecticut Watercolor Society, the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, the Rowayton Art Society, and the Aldrich Museum Annual High School Competition, among others.
Brennan describes his shaped canvas constructions as visual structures that are simplified to their essence. They can allude to forms found in the human experience (landscapes, the human figure), but ultimately his goal is to make the work rise to the level of visual poetry. The carpet series presents the beauty and complexity of the oriental carpet placed within an environment of ambiguity, contradiction and mystery. Influenced by the thought of nineteenth century surrealist poet Andre Breton along with surrealist painters such as Rene Magritte, Brennan places objects together that, although seemingly unrelated, create their own special poetry and relationships.
This is the first exhibition of Brennan's work in the Woodbury area.
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