Artist's Statement
My work is a way of questioning, re-examining, forging meaning; a way to connect with and engage the viewer. It’s anchored in lived experience, memory, and point of view.
Since my early formative field research in West Africa, I have used biomorphic language in my sculpture, drawing and painting. Prior to 2018, my work centered on abstraction.
More recently I have chosen to work representationally so my message would speak clearly to the viewer.
Since 2018 I have felt compelled to develop a new, innovative body of work: narrative paintings that chronicle the social/cultural issues of our time, memories of lived experience and complex compositions reflecting daily life.
This latter group of paintings represents visual complexity through the intersection of an exterior view with the reflection on glass of the interior space. The resultant image is a metaphor for our layered lives, for what we look at but don't see and the abundance it holds. In this way I invite the viewer to engage and reflect.
The translucent painting surfaces I use (Dura-Lar and Yupo) illuminate color and allow me to create images that engage visually while shining a light on these themes.
Artist’s Biography
Brigid Kennedy is a contemporary American artist, born and raised in Western New York. Kennedy creates work across multiple disciplines including painting, sculpture and drawing. Her recent paintings examine today’s social and cultural challenges, memory and the visual complexity of daily life. In the latter paintings, the resulting images are a metaphor for our layered existence.
She received her Bachelors of Arts degree in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, her Bachelors of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and her Master of Fine Arts degree in Sculpture from Yale University School of Art.
After years developing her practice in New York City, Kennedy moved to Central Connecticut in 1989. She has exhibited her sculpture, drawings and paintings nationally and internationally and has lived and worked in South America as well as Europe.
Kennedy’s work is in the collections of The Burchfield Penney Art Center (Buffalo, NY); The New Britain Museum of American Art (New Britain, CT); Pratt Institute (Brooklyn NY); and Trinity College (Hartford, CT).
Recent solo exhibitions include: Gallery on The Green (Canton, CT); ArtWalk at Hartford Public Library (Hartford, CT); Five Points Gallery (Torrington, CT); Ely Center of Contemporary Art (New Haven, CT); Barnes-Franklin Gallery at Tunxis Community College (Farmington, CT); Sculptors Guild installation on Governors Island (New York, NY).
Recent group exhibitions include: Mattatuck Museum (Waterbury, CT); Carriage Trade Gallery (New York, NY); Odetta Gallery (New York, NY); Prince Street Gallery (New York, NY); The Painting Center (New York, NY); The Delaplaine Arts Center (Frederick, MD); Dodomu Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); EBK Gallery (Hartford, CT).
Kennedy has received numerous, awards including the Greater Hartford Arts Council’s Individual Artist Fellowship Grant, a Fulbright Scholar Lecture/Research Award to Chile, a State of Connecticut Commission on the Arts Artists Project Grant, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, multiple National Endowment for the Arts Visual Artists Grants and fellowships at Yaddo and MacDowell art colonies.
.