Brenda Gallagher

ARTIST STATEMENT

            I am an artist, social worker and community volunteer.  Among my favorite artistic medium are drawing, painting, collage and printmaking.  Art has been a life saver over these past three years as Covid-19 took over the world.  And collage was the answer to the importance of expressing feelings about the constant, dismal news that daily entered our homes.

            My current work explores many current events and societal problems. A pet peeve is the robo call.  Interrupting our day at all hours, we rarely answer our home phone.  And considerable time is spent on our cell phones…. blocking calls…checking phone numbers.  Not only do these calls create a nuisance, but they are also often illegal and prey on the elderly and other unsuspecting people.

            A second theme relates to excess, particularly the enormity of unbidden mail.  This subject of paper excess was presented in our class’s 2015 art show “Never Mind, Never Mind… artful acts of randomness”, held at TASOC.  An installation of The Dinner Party consisted of a large-scale ambience for fine dining, constructed with treasured things, and totally overtaken by mail…mostly junk mail.

            Today the paper overflow continues, and so one of my pieces is an installation, A Candlelight Dinner for Two.  Other collages and boxes speak to feelings about the war in Ukraine, Roe v. Wade, the Uvalde school shooting, and famine in Afghanistan.

            It is my hope that these works transform our current events into a more positive reflection full of color, shapes, joy, hope and peace.

August 16, 2022