About

"Katie Brennan's work is a conversational hybrid between abstraction and design. Working in gouache, her work relies heavily on design thinking combined with abstraction — pattern, repetition and a sense of play”

Katie Brennan

Flow chaser. Gouache disciple. Abstraction lover. Design wannabe. Colour cowboy.
Creative player.

Abstraction inspired by design.

My art is all about making dumb, yet informed decisions. Like I take wherever the info from my eyes go (um, my brain, I guess?)  and plug it into some other part of me that processes what I’m seeing – colours, lines, visual information, etc. – in a beautiful, unthinking, even mythical, kind of way. (maybe the subconscious…? maybe my soul…? maybe the superconsciousness of everything living thing…?)

This is what I mean by dumb. 

I don’t really know what’s going on, or where I’m going (yes, I’m very process-based) but I know what I’ve fed myself visually over the years -- what I look at and what I think about and what fascinates me – and know that that’s there underneath everything and trust it to drive the engine. 

You see, making art has always been some kind of mad science experiment to me. “What happens if I do this? What will that do?” Working layer upon layer of hypotheses. Like the work of Sol Lewitt or Bernard Frieze (see, I know some stuff, m’okay ;) 

But I also think of myself as a naughty graphic designer. Who takes the power of line, colour and shape and fucks with it a bit, arriving at all new kinds of meaning and form that delight and surprise me …cause I’m not sure how I got there, but I’m so thrilled that I did! 

Cause like Clyfford Still (yes, this is a modernist reference), I believe that these abstract things mean something. They are their own, in and of themselves, and they each speak (or sing?) in their own way. 

And all I’ve got are silly old words to try to explain them. And that can be fun, and poetic, but it still takes something away. So, all I can say to try to make you understand what I’m on about is that I’m interested in wordless meaning. 

And I used to just work in gouache. But that seems to be changing recently. So, stay tuned!

Art School All the Way.

I’m an art school kid through and through. I went to Emily Carr University (BFA) in Vancouver and the University of Guelph (MFA) in Guelph, Ontario.

Stepping onto my Own Path.

Upon the completion of my MFA, I moved back to the beautiful Okanagan Valley in Western Canada. There, I began to decompress from grad school - letting go of methods, practices and concepts that didn’t work for me anymore and re-forming my own way of working. 

Around the World.

I am very fortunate to have my work on offer with awesome retailers like Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma Home. My work also pops up in interior design work in magazines like in House Beautiful, House and Home, and Better Homes and Gardens. Movies and tv shows too — like the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, ABC's Forever and How to Be Single. I also have the great pleasure with working with clients all over the world - Canada, United States, Australia, China, Greece and Norway, amongst others. 

Landing on Salt Spring Island.

I now live in the artist mecca of Salt Spring Island and divide my time between painting and officiating ceremonies.

Official Bio

Katie Brennan holds an MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art & Design. Her work has been shown in exhibitions in Canada and the United States. Her work has been offered at major retailers across Canada & the US including Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma Home, and appeared in interior design work in Domino Magazine, House & Home and Better Homes & Gardens, among others, and has work in private and corporate collections in North America, Europe, United Kingdom, Australia and China. 

She has also completed a number of public art projects and was awarded artist residencies at the Banff Centre, the Caetani Cultural Centre, and UBC Okanagan. During her time as the Curator for the Lake Country Art Gallery, BC and as the Executive Director of the Arts Council of the Central Okanagan, BC, she also led a number of self-generated entrepreneurial projects, including Katie Brennan Art Consulting, which she ran for 8 years. More recently, she served as the Art Manager for Saa'men Economic Development LLP - Qualicum First Nation. Katie has also held administrative and/or curatorial positions at a number of public galleries and artist-run centres including the Vancouver Art Gallery. She taught at UBC Okanagan from 2009 - 2013 (sessional lecturer) and her writing has appeared in Border Crossings and Galleries West magazines, as well as in many exhibition catalogues.

She currently lives and works on Salt Spring Island, the ancestral and unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish - Hul'qumi'num and SENĆOŦEN speaking peoples, where she also officiates Weddings as a Certified Lifecycle Celebrant.