Vega Brennan
Repetition and multiplicity: print and art education in secondary schools
Supervisors
About Vega
Vega’s art practice mostly involves printmaking, using sustainable or upcycled materials and lower environmental impact processes. She explores themes of potentiality, play and instruction-based art, usually focussed on a specific context or mode of distribution.
Project description
This project explores how printmaking can offer unique conceptual tools through which students can reconceptualise artistic process, outcomes, and value.
Printmaking’s inherent principles of repetition, variation, and multiplicity position it as a theoretically rich yet under-used medium within secondary/high school education.
Despite evidence that printmaking enhances observational and technical skills, and iterative problem-solving, its curricular presence remains uneven, shaped by disparities in resources, teacher expertise, and assessment-driven constraints.
This project will work with print/art communities, secondary art teachers and their students to develop a deeper understanding of what print does, both in practical terms as art practice and as multiple objects.
Research interests
- Art education
- Printmaking in the expanded field
- Materiality
- Critical pedagogy
- Art practice as research
Publications
- Brennan, V. and Mendus, A. (2025) ‘Gifting an artistic licence: printing, radicalism and pedagogy’, International Journal of Art and Design Education: Special Issue Imagination, Vol 44, Issue 2, pp. 396-411. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12566
- Brennan, V. (2016) ‘A licence to print money’, AD Magazine, National Society for the Education of Art and Design, Spring, Issue 15
Presentations
- Brennan, V. (2026) ‘MONEY GUN’ [performance], Paradox Fine Art European Forum: Connecting, Collaborating, Co-creating, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, 31 March.
- Brennan, V. (2025) ‘Artistic Licences’ [workshop], Artist-Teacher Adult Community Learning Conference, National Society for the Education of Art and Design, 9 March, online.
- Brennan, V. (2024) ‘Asking difficult questions in perilous times: early career teachers, art practice and the questioning stance’ [paper presentation], PEACE: International Journal of Art and Design Education Conference, Liverpool Hope University, 7-9 November.
Teaching
- 2004-2023 Secondary art teacher
- 2017-present freelance art educator
- 2023-present PGCE Art and Design (Secondary) University of Cumbria
- 2025-present PGCE non QTS, University of Cumbria
Education
- MA History of Art (London)
- MA Fine Art and Education (Northumbria)
- FHEA
- NSEAD
Contact
Website: https://www.vegabrennanartist.com