Jonathan Brennan

Jonathan Brennan (1978) is an artist living and working in Belfast since 2012. Originally from Dublin, he spent most of the early 2000s in Brussels, Belgium where he studied painting at the École des Arts d’Anderlecht. He previously studied History of Art & Architecture (and Spanish) at Dublin University, Trinity College Dublin and has a MSc in Multimedia Systems.

Jonathan is a multi-disciplinary artist working with various visual media such as printmaking, painting, video and photography. He also works with audio and text. His work is about place: architectural and urban places as well as what is traditionally referred to as landscape, and how both interact. He is drawn to the less obvious, the neglected and the abandoned – alleyways, culverted rivers, wastelands, abandoned spaces and objects. Brennan's work is not overtly political, but rather seeks to prompt the viewer into looking with new eyes at the quotidian and to consider the wider forces that seek to manipulate how we think and act.

Brennan says he enjoys collaborating with artists working in other media, in particular music and the written word.

At present: "I am currently developing a new body of work around the concept of capturing the sense/feeling of places through a combination of painting, 3D laser-scanning, audio and narrative, based on the notion that no individual form of representation can convey this completely on its own."

Since moving to Belfast, Jonathan has exhibited in the Ulster Museum, Golden Thread Gallery, Framewerk, ArtisAnn, Belfast Exposed, the Crescent Arts Centre, and the Seamus Heaney HomePlace in Bellaghy, Northern Ireland. He exhibits regularly in group shows and had three solo shows in 2017,  two in 2018, two in 2019, one in 2022, and one in 2023.

Jonathan is a member of the Belfast Print Workshop and Vault Artist Studios.