Lorraine Brennan is a major contemporary figurative painter residing in Atlanta, Georgia. Growing up in New York then Mississippi within a large family of 8 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.