Lorraine Brennan is a mixed media contemporary figurative painter residing in Atlanta,
Georgia. 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. Growing up in New York then Mississippi within a large family of 8 siblings, from an early age she used art to explore the complex interrelationships between the human figure and the emotional human experience.
Lorraine Brennan is a mixed media contemporary figurative painter. Lorraine creates figurative oil paintings on large canvases, exploring movements, expressions, spaces, and colors. Sensuality and intimacy are major themes 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. She began as a printmaker which brings a distinctive element of her paintings with her use of intricate pressings, a technique she developed in printmaking and then brought 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 and dignity of several generations of African-Americans. Her subject matter transcends age and gender.
She has won several juried awards, including two international awards. Her paintings have also been selected for inclusion in films, including Tyler Perry’s Fall from Grace, Paramount film, The Hate You Give, and Three Can Play That Game directed by Samad Davis 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.
RECOGNITION
JURIED AWARDS
Merit Award: Manhattan Arts International The Healing Power of ART 2020
Award Of Excellence: Manhattan Arts International The Healing Power of ART 2019
Award Of Excellence: South Cobb Arts Alliance 2002
Best Of Show: Pickens County Museum 23rd Annual 1997
Merit Award: Florida Printmakers 10th Annual 1996
Purchase Award: Nude 96 1996
Best Of Show: Mississippi State University 22nd Annual 1994
Award Of Excellence: Mississippi Collegiate Competition 1994
FILM/EVENT PRODUCTIONS
Fall From Grace, 2020 directed by Tyler Perry
The Hate You Give, 2018 directed by George Tillman Jr.
Three Can Play That Game, 2007 directed by Samaud Davis Ludacris Twitter Takeover event
NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL JURIED EXHIBITIONS
The Healing Power of ART – Manhattan Arts International Online 2020
The Healing Power of ART – Manhattan Arts International Online 2019
15th Annual South Cobb Arts Alliance Mableton, GA 2002
Decatur Arts Alliance Decatur, GA 2002
Paper in Particular: Columbia College Columbia, MO 1998
Anderson Fine Arts Center Anderson, SC 1998
Florida Printmakers Society 10th Annual Jacksonville, FL 1997
Cross Currents: Walter Anderson Museum Ocean Springs, MS 1996
1996 Nude, Memphis, TN 1996
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
The Phillip Rush Center, Decatur, GA 2019
Tapps Art Center, Columbia, SC 2014
Gallery 325 Atlanta, GA 2007
Sabra Gallery Atlanta, GA 2006
Majed Atlanta, GA 2005
Pangea Atlanta, GA 2005
Twin Tower Lofts Atlanta, GA 2004
Georgia Perimeter College Atlanta, GA 2003
East Atlanta Public Library Atlanta, GA 2001
Young Blood Gallery Atlanta, GA 2001
Downtown Public Library Atlanta, GA 2000
The Crescent Room Atlanta, GA 1999
Blue Ridge Art Gallery Seneca, SC 1999
Main Street Gallery Starkville, MS 1998
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
The Bohemian Den, Macon, GA 2021
Georgia Perimeter College Faculty Exhibition Clarkston, GA 2001-2015
Darius Gallery Atlanta, GA 2002
Art Institute of Atlanta Atlanta, GA 2002
Georgia Perimeter College Faculty Exhibition Finland 2002
Atlanta College of Art Faculty Exhibition Atlanta, GA 2001