Jessie Brennan is a London-based artist whose practice explores the inter-relations between peop
le and places, informed by their social and political contexts and a direct engagement with the individuals who occupy them. Her practice is research-led and situated, taking the form of drawing, photography, installation, performance, film, writing and publications.
Jessie graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2007. She has exhibited extensively in the UK and Europe, and her work is held in public and private collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City. Recent selected exhibitions include: Re: development – Inside The Green Backyard, Carroll/Fletcher Onscreen, London (solo, 2017); If This Were to Be Lost, dalla Rosa Gallery, London (solo, 2016); RESIDENT, City Gallery & Museum, Peterborough (2016); Progress, The Foundling Museum, London (2014); Talents Contemporains, François Schneider Foundation, France (2014); Coup de Ville, WARP, Belgium (2013). Her authored books include Regeneration! (2015) and Re: development (2016).
Education/Training:
2008 – 2009 Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art & Design (CLTAD): Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching
2005 – 2007 Royal College of Art, London: MA Printmaking (Distinction in Critical and Historical Studies)
2001 – 2004 Cardiff School of Art & Design, UWIC: BA (hons) Fine Art (First Class)
2000 – 2001 University College Falmouth: Diploma in Foundation Studies Art & Design (Distinction)
Solo Exhibitions:
Sink plug washer
2017 Re:development – Inside The Green Backyard, a collaborative networked exhibition, Carroll/Fletcher Onscreen
2017 Re:development, Dhaba, University of Sussex, UK
2016 If This Were to Be Lost, dalla Rosa Gallery, London, UK
2015 Regeneration! HS Projects, London, UK
2013 Adrift on Life’s Tides, Rochester Art Gallery, Kent, UK
2012 Cities & Eyes, Marian Cramer Projects, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2011 Grey Hope, Queens’ Hall Gallery, Narberth, Wales
2011 Blind Trust: Hesters Way Project, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, UK
2010 43 Strangers, Oriel Fach, Queens Hall Gallery, Narberth, Wales
2009 Black Light, Brook Gallery, Devon, UK
Commissioned Projects:
2017 YOUR WORDS, inaugural project for Open Plan, South London Gallery, UK
Ashtray cyanotype
2015–16 Inside The Green Backyard (Opportunity Area), Metal, Peterborough, UK
2015 Regeneration! HS Projects, London, UK
2014 MetalBillboard, Metal, Peterborough, UK
2014 Progress, The Foundling Museum, London, UK
2013 Coup de Ville, Warp, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
2013 Adrift on Life’s Tides, Medway Council, Kent, UK
2010–12 Everything Meets Here, Art on the Underground, London, UK
2011 Hesters Way Project, The Open West, Cheltenham, UK
2010–11 The Cut, SPACE, London, UK
2009 Impossible Buildings: Interpreting Place, Art on the Underground, London, UK
Selected Group Exhibitions:
2017 Drawing Biennial 2017, Drawing Room, London, UK
2017 A5xn, dalla Rosa Gallery, London, UK
2016 Summer Exhibition 2016, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2016 KALEID at Offprint London, Tate Modern, London, UK
2016 KALEID 2016, Oslo, Norway
2016 John Ruskin Prize 2015, Trinity Buoy Wharf, London, UK
2016 Drawn, University College London Hospital, UK
2016 OPEN, Lancaster Arts, Lancaster University, UK
2016 Ghost[ed.], Idea Store, Canary Wharf, London, UK
2016 Art Lending Library (a project by Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich), Metal Peterborough, UK
2016 Concrete Matters, The CASS & Bank Space Gallery, London, UK
2016 John Ruskin Prize 2015, The New Art Gallery Walsall, UK
2016 Jessie Brennan / Kasper Pincis, dalla Rosa Gallery at London Art Fair 2016, UK
2016 Four Words (a project by Alan Dunn), Liverpool Provocations / Metal Liverpool, UK
2016 Ghost[ed.], Kettering Museum, UK
2015 Contemporary British Drawing, XAFA – Xi’an Academy of Fine Art, China
2015 dalla Rosa Gallery at Multiplied, Christie’s, London, UK
2015 neo:artprize2015, neo:gallery27, Bolton, UK
2015 Plymouth Contemporary Open 2015, Peninsula Arts Gallery, Devon, UK
2015 Open Studio, Metal Time and Space Residency, Peterborough, UK
2015 Creekside Open 2015 Selected by Richard Deacon, APT Gallery, London, UK
2015 Ghost[ed.], Dean Clough, Halifax, UK
2015 Carta, dalla Rosa gallery, London, UK
2015 Works on Paper, Galerie Van De Weghe, Antwerp, Belgium
2015 Visage, Art First, London, UK
2015 Drawing Biennial 2015, Drawing Room, London, UK
2015 Activating the Archive, Banner Repeater / Hackney Archives, London, UK
2015 Cross Section/03, dalla Rosa gallery, London, UK
2014 – 2015 Hoarding, City Gallery, Peterborough, UK
2014 162 Annual Open Exhibition, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol, UK
2014 Multiplied, dalla Rosa gallery at Christie’s, London, UK
2014 Contemporary Talents 2012, François Schneider Foundation, France
2014 Westenwind, Martin Kudlek Gallery, Germany (curated by Stef Van Bellingen)
2014 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2014, Jerwood Space, London (and UK tour)
2014 Amsterdam Drawing 2014, Marian Cramer Projects, Netherlands
2014 Derwent Art Prize, Mall Galleries, London, UK
2014 Progress, The Foundling Museum, London, UK
2014 Interchange Junctions, HS Projects, London, UK
2014 The Open West 2014, The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum, UK
2014 Oriel Davies Open 2014, Oriel Davies Gallery, Wales
Medway 2013
2013 Coup de Ville, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
2013 Postcard From My Studio, Acme Project Space, London, UK
2013 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2013 The Big Bamboozle, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
2012 Celeste Prize 2012, Centrale Montemartini, Rome, Italy
2012 Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary, Mall Galleries, London, UK
2012 Juxtaposition, See Studio, London, UK
2012 Double Take, Studio 3 Gallery, Kent, UK
2011–12 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, Jerwood Space, London (and UK tour)
2011 Bite, Mall Galleries, London, UK
2011 SPACE Satellite Projects: The Cut (with Chris Dorley-Brown and Daniel Lehan), SPACE, London, UK
2011 The Cut, The View Tube, London, UK
2011 Open West 2011, The Open West, Cheltenham, UK
2010–11 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2010, Jerwood Space, London (and UK tour)
2010 Protected Characteristics, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2010 And Then Again, Lisbon City Museum, Portugal
2010 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2010 The Big Rip Off!, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
2010 Originals 10, Mall Galleries, London, UK
2010 BEARSPACE, London Art Fair, UK
2009 National Open Art Competition Chichester, Chichester Art Trust, UK
2009 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2008 Christmas Exhibition, Jealous Gallery, London, UK
2008 Discerning Eye, Mall Galleries, London, UK
2008 10, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2008 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2008 Divination, Brunswick Gallery, London, UK
2007 The Great Exhibition, MA Graduate Show, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2007 Kunstwurst, Café Gallery Projects, London, UK
2007 Over and Over Again, Saddlers Wells, London, UK
2006 Summer Exhibition 2006, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK
2006 MAN Group Drawing Exhibition, Royal College of Art, London, UK
Selected Awards/Competitions/Prizes:
2016 John Ruskin Prize 2015, Second Prize Winner, The Big Draw
2016 Aesthetica Prize 2016, Longlisted, Aesthetica Magazine
2016 Visiting Research Fellow, The Bartlett, UCL
2015-16 Grants for the Arts, Arts Council England, UK
2015 Seedbed Trust Award, Seedbed Christian Community Trust, UK
2015 Small Commissions Programme, Peterborough Presents, UK
2015 Jessica Wilkes Studio Award, Shortlisted, Acme Studios in collaboration with PEER, London
2015 9th International Arte Laguna Prize 2015, Finalist, Italian Cultural Association MoCA (Modern Contemporary Art) / Arte Laguna Studio, Venice
2015 Neighbourhood Commission, Shortlisted, Creative Barking and Dagenham, London
2013 Artist’s International Development Fund, Arts Council England / British Council
2012 Contemporary Talents 2012, Winner (Drawing Category), François Schneider Foundation, France
2012 Celeste Prize 2012, Finalist, Centrale Montemartini, Rome
2012 Discerning Eye Drawing Bursary, Shortlisted, Mall Galleries, London
2011 Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011, Second Prize Winner, Jerwood Foundation, London
2010 Grundtvig Visits and Exchanges Award, ECORYS, Birmingham
2007 Augustus Martin Prize, Royal College of Art, London
2006 Leverhulme Trust Bursary, The Leverhulme Trust, UK
Residencies:
2015-16 Time and Space Residency, Metal Peterborough, UK
2013 Warp, Sint-Niklaas, Belgium
2013 LV21 Light Vessel, Gillingham, Kent, UK
2011 Artist Residency, CPS – Centro Português de Serigrafia, Portugal
2010 WARP Artists’ Village, WARP Contemporary Art Platform, Belgium
2010 Visiting Artist, St Michael’s Printshop, Newfoundland
2004 International Plein-Air, V.K. Jonynas Gallery, Druskininkai, Lithuania
Collections:
2016 Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK
2016 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA
2016 Oslo National Academy of the Arts Library, Norway
2016 SAIC Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection, Chicago, USA
2016 Rhode Island School of Art and Design, USA
2016 Chelsea School of Art, UAL, UK
2012 François Schneider Foundation, Wattwiller, France
Press:
2017 Matthew Thompson, ‘Jessie Brennan (ed), Re:development: Voices, Cyanotypes and Writings from the Green Backyard, London: Silent Grid, 2016’, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 18 April 2017
2017 Oli Mould, ‘Jessie Brennan, Regeneration! Conversations, Drawings, Archives & Photographs from Robin Hood Gardens’, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, 6 January 2017
2016 Jessie Brennan, ‘Saving Peterborough’s Green Backyard: ‘It’s a point of stillness in a crazy world’, The Guardian, 3 November 2016
2016 Chris Sharratt, ‘Art Brut: Will brutalism’s greatest legacy be its influence on artists?’, Frieze, 6 April 2016
2016 Chris Fite-Wassilak, ‘Jessie Brennan: Regeneration! Nathan Coley: to the Bramley Family of Frestonia’, Art Monthly, Issue 393, February 2016
2016 Chris Fite-Wassilak, Alex Fletcher and Maria Walsh, ‘Art Monthly Events’, Resonance FM, 8 February 2016
2016 Richard Martin, ‘Regeneration! On the art of Jessie Brennan, Docomomo UK, 2 May 2016
2016 Colin Wiles, ‘A tale of two brutalist housing estates: one thriving, one facing demolition’, The Guardian, 13 January 2016
2015 Jessie Brennan, ‘Robin Hood Gardens: “They’re driving us away to replace us with wealthy people”’, ICON Magazine, 30 November 2015
2015 Chris Sharratt, ‘Brutalist truth: Robin Hood Gardens and the politics of regeneration’, AN, 12 November 2015
2015 Flora Neville, ‘A swansong for Robin Hood Gardens’, Architects’ Journal, 23 October 2015
2015 Jessie Brennan, ‘Robin Hood Gardens and the politics of regeneration’, Apollo Magazine, 11 August 2015
2014 BBC Radio 4 Front Row, interview with Caro Howell and Jessie Brennan by John Wilson, 5 June 2014
2014 BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking, interview with Caro Howell and Jessie Brennan by Matthew Sweet, 3 June 2014
2014 Jenny Uglow, ‘Booze, whores and high living – a modern take on Hogarth’s Rake’, The Guardian, 6 June 2014
2014 Jackie Wullschlager, ‘Progress’, Financial Times, 1 June 2014
2014 Alastair Smart, ‘Would Hogarth have voted Ukip?’, The Telegraph, 8 June 2014
2014 Ben Luke, ‘Jessie Brennan on new show Progress at The Foundling Museum’, Evening Standard, 3 June 2014
2014 Michaela Nettell, ‘A response to Hogarth: “I’m thinking about progress as a concept”, AN, 3 June 2014
2014 Ruth Wilbur, ‘Artist of the Month’, Axisweb, 1 July 2014
2014 Julia Langbein, ‘Progress, critics’ picks’, Artforum, 6 June 2014
2014 Tim Arthur, with Jessie Brennan, BBC London 94.9 Robert Elms, 27 May 2014
Conferences/Symposia/Panel Discussions:
2017 ‘Visualising the fight for home and security: Revealing injustice and making change’, RC21 Conference (11-13 September 2017)
2017 ‘Doing Architectural Research: socio-political perspectives on theories, methodologies & praxis’, University of Cambridge (workshop, 26 June 2017)
2017 ‘Voicing Experience: The 4th British Conference of Autoethnography’, Department of Sociology, University of Sussex (15-16 June 2017)
2017 ‘Future Passé’, V&A (conference, 2 June 2017)
2017 ‘Urban Planning as Social Cleansing’, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (panel discussion, 17 May 2017)
2017 ‘Concrete Utopias: Metaphor and Material’, Bluecoat, Liverpool (symposium, 12 May 2017)
2017 ‘Sound of Memory Symposium: Sound-track / Sound-scape’, The Whitechapel Gallery, London (23 April 2017)
2017 ‘Beyond Words’, International Conference, Plymouth University (14-15 March 2017)
2017 ‘Brutalism Redux: Resuscitating the urban politics of brutalist architecture’, RHUL Centre for GeoHumanities (panel discussion, 27 January 2017)
2016 ‘Drawing Futures’, The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL (conference, 10 & 11 November 2016)
2016 ‘Forgotten Estates’, Royal Academy of Arts (panel discussion, 26 September 2016)
2016 ‘Regeneration: Who is it for?’, The Big Draw, London (panel discussion, 19 May 2016)
2016 ‘Found Footage & Archival Material’, Film+Place+Architecture – Bartlett Doctoral Initiative, UCL (seminar, 20 April 2016)
2016 ‘Matter of Spatial Narratives’, Fine Art Research Programme, Royal College of Art, (seminar, 14 April 2016)
2016 ‘We Are Moving: 233-269 High Street Archive’, The Wilson Gallery, Cheltenham (symposium, 12 February 2016)
2015 ‘New Engagements with Architecture’, ICAM-UKI Symposium, V&A + RIBA Architecture Partnership (13 November 2015)
2015 ‘The Case of Robin Hood Gardens’, Urban Laboratory, UCL (seminar, 22 June 2015)
Selected Employment/Teaching:
2017 ACME Artist Housing Programme, panel member, Glassyard (22 & 23 June 2017)
2017 University of East London: Visiting Lecturer, MRes Architecture (Reading the Neoliberal City) (17 January 2017)
2017 Northampton University: invited speaker, Subject Futures Week (26 January 2017)
2017 West Dean College: Public Lecture (25 January 2017)
2017 Arts University Bournemouth: Visiting Lecturer, MA Architecture (13 January 2017)
2016 King’s College London: Visiting Lecturer, MA Cultural and Creative Industries (2 December 2016)
2016 Plymouth University: Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art (15 & 16 November 2016)
2016 Winchester School of Art: Visiting Lecturer, MA Fine Art (4 November 2016)
2016 School of Architecture, The Bartlett, UCL: Visiting Lecturer, MA Architectural History (4 & 25 February 2016)
2016 Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield: Visiting Lecturer (1 February 2016)
2016 Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Lancaster University: Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art (26 January 2016)
2015 Norwich University of the Arts: Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art (11 December 2015)
2015 WARP / Bruges Triennial, Belgium: Commentator, Artist Village 2015
2013 – 2015 Falmouth University: Visiting Lecturer, BA Drawing
2012 – 2013 Plymouth University: Visiting Lecturer, BA Education Studies
2011 – 2015 University for the Creative Arts, Epsom: Visiting Lecturer, BA Fashion Promotion & Imaging
2011 – present Royal College of Art: ReachOutRCA Projects
2011 – present University of Gloucestershire: Sessional Lecturer, BA Fine Art
2009 – 2013 Camden Arts Centre: Lead Artist for Insights
2009 – 2010 Royal College of Art: Assistant Lithography Technician, MA Printmaking
2008 – 2015 Bishopsgate Institute: Course Tutor, Drawing
2008 – 2010 University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury: Sessional Lecturer, BA Fine Art
2008 – 2013 Camden Arts Centre: Artist Workshop Leader
2007 – 2009 Thames Valley University: Lecturer Foundation Studies in Art & Design
2007 Royal College of Art, London: Assistant Curator, RCA Secret
2004 – 2005 National Museum & Galleries of Wales, Cardiff: Workshop Leader
2005 Cardiff School of Art & Design, UWIC: Visiting Lecturer, BA Fine Art
2004 University College Falmouth: Visiting Lecturer, Foundation Studies