Girlín: The Conception of Air, 2023
PS2 Gallery, Belfast
''At the core of Emma Brennan’s practice is the persistent draw of dough. With an unyielding bond between it and she, her relationship to this material is not just physical, but emotional, spiritual and political. The incorporation of dough into her work holds both ancestral and sentimental value. In capturing the processes of this material, in all of its alchemic, formal and sensory properties, She explores the complexities of the creation of a living, breathing thing. Brennan’s work is currently occupied with the cyclical processes of breathing/living and is formed upon the four pillars of; gestation, birth, life and death. G I R L í N is a move towards an entirely new body of work for the artist, specific to how these pillars relate to the female form. She is thinking about this within the context of Ireland (both currently and historically) and then more intimately where she stands amongst it, not only as artist and creator but also as a queer, Irish, female-identfying, living/breathing being. The Bitter Milk Of Memory, a zine created by the artist and commissioned by Cecelia Graham is soon to be published as an accompaniment for this project. '' - www.pssquared.org/projects/girlin
