Hailing from Naarm/Melbourne, Angela Brennan has built a distinguished career over the past four decades through her deep exploration of colour and abstracted form, rich with external references, text, and figurative elements that, as critic Michael Graf points out, “build a potent self-image of the artist, reflecting her various interests, beliefs, and preferences.” Brennan’s paintings possess a profound intellectual depth, blending sensory, material, and scholarly elements.

There is something exhilarating about viewing Brennan’s works, like drawing for the first time. Compositions that render forms, not objects, as a relation. A psychological game – three orbs, two rings, slabs of colour, contrails of light. Encountering intellect and love humming with the vibration of colours juxtaposed or, at other times, muddied and mauled, these floating forms envelop, making me suspicious of my own implicit negativity.

—Lisa Radford, The Saturday Paper, April 2024

The Commercial will be presenting an exhibition of Brennan’s paintings from her recent solo show at the Art Gallery of Ballarat in October this year.

View further information at the gallery website.