2025
Exhibition Residencies
Residency Period 20/3/25 - 17/4/25
Kearney works with a variety of mediums including handmade ceramics and collaborative publications, she also engages in activities such as community feasts and seed exchanges. Her curiosity is grounded in researching anthropology, the poetic qualities and potential of materials (particularly natural and traditionally domestic materials) and techniques in global art and craft traditions. She is interested in ideas of myth and meaning, how we imbue objects with meaning, and how they influence us in return. Her appreciation of a slower approach to making, researching and collaborating reflects a low-impact and environmental consideration within her practice.
Materials: Vase - stoneware clay, cobalt oxide, cotton thread; Pillow - canvas, sheeps wool and dried meadowsweet flowers, silk ribbons dyed with madder root.
Wood-fired pottery, fired with salt, copper oxide and beech nuts. Beeswax and rapeseed coating.
Driftwood, beeswax, horsehair, copper pins, cotton thread, ceramic hooks.
Woodfired and stoneware pottery, jute, raffia, cotton pillow, rosehips, madder-dyed silk, oyster shell.
Pit-fired stoneware clay, fired with seaweed, cow pats, copper deposits, wood and seashells; waxed with olive oil and beeswax
Pit-firing before materials added.
Brenda Kearney
Brenda is a Leitrim-based multidisciplinary artist with a variety of approaches to making work, ranging from a studio-based practice of ceramics, drawing and textiles to developing collaborative community projects, often focusing on food, gardening and shared meals. Her work creates playful reflections on the worlds around us, the dynamic interconnecting worlds of animals, plants and people; she is drawn to exploring and inspiring engagement with the natural world.
Some of her recent work include a solo exhibition, The Flower Songs, at the Hyde Bridge Gallery in Sligo and an artist residency on Four Seasons, a Kids’ Own project with Cranmore Community Co-op in Sligo, funded by Creative Climate Action. 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 published Bread That Smiles at the Moon, a publication of recipes exploring the role of the senses in everyday life and cooking. She is currently a studio artist at the Model, Sligo.
Past Residencies