John Brennan

Lives and works in Henley-on-Thames, UK

Artist statement

I’m fascinated by a subtle sensation that I’ve come to regard as a visual paranoia of sorts. It can be present across a wide range of subject matter, the common denominator being images whose context refuses to be pinned down. I find this quiet tension compelling. I work from my own photographs, generated imagery and found sources, sometimes transcribing them intact and sometimes altering or combining them to form new scenes. Through painting, I selectively heighten the particular qualities that first drew me to an image, making its atmosphere or ambiguity more pronounced. The fiction and popular culture of my childhood and early teenage years influence the work, emerging more as echoes or associations than direct quotations. The result is a disparate range of subjects. In my head, they connect and inhabit the same world.

Artwork