Brenda is a multidisciplinary artist with a practice centred around domestic practices, ideas of community and collaborative care. Drawing on previous experience as a cook, fishmonger, student of anthropology and ongoing ceramic work, she creates projects which prompt conversation, collaborative curiosity and exchanges of ideas. She also incorporates ethnographic research in her methodology, particularly in the areas of craft, education and cultural heritage. She is currently a studio artist at the Model, Sligo (2022- 2026) in the north-west of Ireland.

Brenda is a founding member of Fairland Collective, a socially-engaged art collective based between Ireland, the UK and France; they produce art projects that recognise and encourage creativity in daily life. These projects often use cooking and meals to engage networks of people and communities, offering poetic and lively interruptions to ordinary life. Through art and action, the collective’s work facilitates encounters that imagine and create new common ways of working and living together.

Recent commissions and invited residencies include artist-in-residence on 'Four Seasons', a Kids’ Own project at Cranmore Community Co-op in Sligo, funded by Creative Ireland, and involving a panel of invited artists, scientists and experts. In 2023, she founded 'Small Seeds', an on-going collaborative project of drawing, ecology and care funded by Creative Ireland and Kildare Arts, following a development stage funded by an Arts Council bursary. In late 2023, she also published 'Bread That Smiles at the Moon', a publication of recipes exploring the role of the senses in everyday life and cooking. Last year she collaborated with artist Fergal Brennan to create 'Wild Weeds', a biodiversity, drawing and animation project for children, commissioned by the Civic Theatre, Tallaght. She has previously worked as a commissioned artist on various projects with Grizedale Arts, including A Fair Land at IMMA. She has an upcoming solo show, 'The Flower Songs', at the Hyde Bridge Gallery, Sligo, in late November 2024.

Contact: Brenda.kearney@gmail.com