Layers, eye contact and nudes: Limerick artist explores stories told by bodies

IF PASSERS-BY looked through the window of Ian Brennan’s studio, they might be surprised. Layer after layer, the Caherconlish native explores stories that are told by bodies, with a painterly approach. If he had to describe his art, Ian would say it’s “honest, shocking and relational.” Words he would also use to describe himself.

“I wouldn't put it on my Tinder profile though,” Ian laughs.

“Half a twin,” the artist often tells people that he was in a relationship before he arrived into the world. Through his work, Ian explores all sort of relationships - with his own self, his family and friends, lovers, but also the one he shares with his sitters.
As he invites his sitters to take part in a soul-baring experience, he often engages in the art of eye contact - also called a witnessing exercise.

“We look into each other's eyes. It could be from five minutes to up to 40 minutes. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. And I guide the sitter through a body scan, a meditation where I invite them into their bodies and I do the same with myself, it brings us into a deep place of meditation,” Ian explains.

 Sometimes, the eye contact can lead to tears.

“I often have shed tears myself, and often my sitters have shed tears. It really is a deep process. When there's no words behind it, we come out of our head and into our heart and we’re faced with what's present,” he says.

Perhaps it is because of his training as a psychotherapist that he manages to bring so much depth into his art. Often, he paints nudes, but not with the type of approach that some might expect.

“I tell people that I’m not going to paint their beauty, but that I’m going to paint an aspect of them and show the beauty of that,” he says. “It doesn't matter what age the person is, from people in their mid-20s right up to their mid-70s.”

For Ian, the body holds stories and experiences. He is keen to stress he doesn’t just paint the human body, but the human feelings covered in flesh.

Before getting interrupted by a passing train, he says: “The more flesh, the more feelings sometimes. I think everybody should be celebrated, that everybody’s body should be celebrated. Every aspect of who we are. It doesn't matter if some people have more skin and more flesh or less flesh than others. It’s the only vessel that we have in our lives, our bodies. It's always a privilege for me when a person give me access wholeheartedly to both their exterior and interior.”

After having spent almost two decades in the corporate world, Ian decided to follow his lifelong dream of becoming an artist. Over the last three years, he has been painting full-time - something he never saw himself doing. From a young age, he was interested in art - but didn’t have access to materials.

“In secondary school, we had a very robust system where your name was picked out of the hat to get into the art class, and my name wasn't picked out, so I didn't get to do art,” he recalls.

Art is not something he ever thought he would get into.

“I'm self-taught and I don't have a degree. So I always would've lacked confidence or felt less than those who had a degree or were qualified. But my experience has been that you don't need to have a degree to become an artist,” he says.

Ian Brennan is the only Irish artist who has been selected for the London Art Biennale for the second time in-a-row. In 2021, he won an award at the Biennale, which took him to the Cianciano Biennale in Tuscany, Italy.  

In rural Cork, Ian lives simply. In his home, there are no clocks. The painter doesn’t watch television or listen to the news - a decision he consciously made a couple of years ago - something that’s appreciated when he finds himself in “celebrity circles” because of his work, as he gets to meet people for who they are - without “preconceived expectations.”

As he is getting ready to attend his friend’s book launch in London, he says he’ll always feel the need to come back home.
“I come home every two or three months, it grounds me, it makes me remember where I'm from, who I am. But it also reminds me of how far I've come from since I lived there,” Ian says.