Philip Brennan is a native of County Clare. He has been exhibiting his work since the late ‘seventies, the current exhibition ‘Clare Moments’ (2019 /2020) being his 23rd solo show. He works mainly in watercolour, but also in other media. His work covers a wide range of subjects, including landscape, seascape, flora and fauna, historical themes, music-associated ideas, people and interpretive work based on all of the above. He is strongly influenced by his background as an active naturalist, but his roots in his native county are perhaps his greatest influence. His work is very much based on field-sketching and he has pursued this approach at home and on wildlife expeditions in Senegal and Canada. As a traditional singer, he has won both Munster and All-Ireland competitions for newly composed songs and singing.
As well as his exhibitions, he has published two books of paintings and writing, ‘Philip Brennan’s Clare‘ 2002, the first such book for the county, and ‘Wanderings’ 2006. He has also done a lot of illustrative work, most notably ‘Birds of Killarney woodlands’ OPW 1996. While most of his exhibitions have been in Munster, he has exhibited in Dublin, Wisconsin and at the Florence Biennale, has done artist residencies in Wales and a large number of public wildlife paintings around Ireland.