cecily brennan: black tears crawford art gallery, emmet place

Text copyright David O’Brien. First published in Enclave Review, Spring 2011, p.2

Cecily Brennan: Black TearsCrawford Art Gallery, Emmet Place, CorkDavid ‘Dobz’ O’Brien

Where to begin? There is a lot already writtenabout Cecily Brennan’s Black Tears, which iscurrently being screened at the Crawford Gallery aspart of their Screening Room programme. Most ofit has to do with the actress Britta Smith, thecentral character, who died before Brennan hadcompleted the final edit; the hiring of a DOP andlighting technician from the world of cinema; themagic of digital manipulation; and thepiece’s high production costs and values. But whatabout the artwork itself? What is it trying to tell us?

Our encounter begins with the face of an elderlywoman, in her late 60s / early 70s, in extremeclose-up. She is set against a strikingly vibrant redbackground, luminous and deep as infinity. Shehovers. What unfolds is a play of two acts wherethe woman slowly breaks down, cries, then wails,followed by a pause, before the sequence isrepeated in the final act until her tears turn blackand run down her face. This ordeal last about 7minutes.

Peter Greenaway talks about the four tyrannies of

film: the text, the frame, the actor, and thecamera. Does Black Tears suffer from the tyrannyof acting? How do we get beyond the reading ofthe subject as anything other than an actorperforming for her supper? Smith’s sorrowfulkeening, while obviously dredged from the bottomof her personal experience, pivots between themasterful and the cloyingly irritating. We are leftwithout any degree of empathy, and yet knowledgeof Smith’s untimely death draws us in close.

For me there are a number of other key elements,undercurrents which need uncovering, and maygive us a reading beyond the dominance of theactor. I happened to be present at the openingscreening, at which Brennan gave an allusive, if alittle unnecessarily opaque, talk. Between the fogand mirrors her comments seemed to makepossible an alternative understanding of the work.First, Brennan, who began her career as a painter,and still paints today (I believe there is a largewatercolour that accompanies this video work), haspainted a 3-D 21st century portrait. She has usedhere all the devices of a traditional portraitist.There are similarities to the humanism of aHolbein, for instance: it feels like work from theRenaissance, an art of close and considered humanrepresentations, at once humble and admirable,warts and all. There is craft here, the craft of anartist manipulating a medium, creating a humanistrealism contemporised by technology. It’s in thebrush strokes.

That is to say, Brennan is not just interested inmaking a video artwork but is concerned to workher material, as she would bronze, aluminium,watercolour or oils, in telling her story. Black Tearsis not just an autonomous work, but includes theexterior factor of the act of making, the ‘breath ofthe artist’, perhaps. Brennan wishes to express theunique effort of the artistic process, to imprint thefinal work with the labours of the artist.

Image: © Cecily Brennan Black Tears 2010 HD Video 8’

Brennan spent an awful long time finding the rightactor for the role, and when she found her gaveher little direction. She employed Seamus Deasy, arenowned Irish cinematographer, and recorded

Text copyright David O’Brien. First published in Enclave Review, Spring 2011, p.2

everything in the first take. She then sourced a topCGI expert, and the black tears draw us furtheraway from the subject, thus highlighting theprocess. In other words, Brennan seemed tosteadily move away from her subject. There is afleeting moment ‘at the death’ when Smith looksstraight down the lens of the camera, ‘reaches intoour souls’ and forces us to acknowledge ourpresence together in the virtual space. Maybe, likeMichael Haneke’s troubling Caché, Brennan isimplicating us, in a manner from which we cannotextricate ourselves, in both the construction andunderstanding of the artwork.

David ‘Dobz’ O’Brien is an artist, curator, foundingmember of Art / not art and Programme Directorfor the National Sculpture Factory. Black Tears ranfrom 13th January – 26th February.