.jpg "Brenna Brown")
Bio
Brenna Brown is an 18-year old indigenous Alaskan artist who has lived in San Antonio for the past 12 years. Brenna has been a happy student of SAY Si since eighth grade, and has spent her time making characters, comics and animations that act as extensions of her own emotions and understanding of the world around her. Now, she focuses on illustrating human connections through different mediums, with a personal favorite medium of hers being food. She draws inspiration from the brightly-colored, highly stylized games and shows she consumed as a kid, like Sailor Moon, Pokemon, and an impressive collection of games about cooking. With a heart full of love and killer words to live by (such as “a best way to a friend’s heart is through their stomach), Brenna hopes to graduate from a HIVEling to a full-on bee at Savannah College of Art and Design, as a Sequential Art major.
Artist Statement
Mise en Place is a very personal piece to me—during the Summer of 2020, as I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do for the senior portfolio I had to create for school in the coming months, my mind wandered to food. I recalled the times I’d spent with my Gramma, sitting in her kitchen and asking her to teach me how to make whatever delicious concoction she was working on that day. My most vivid memories of her all seemed to be of food, and as a favorite granddaughter who was prevented from seeing her Gramma for the Summer due to COVID restrictions, I wanted to honor her in some way. So, I spent the year making a portfolio based around the concept “relationships through the lens of food”. However, in February of 2021, my Gramma passed—just after I’d seen her for Christmas.
I wanted to make something to honor her and help me work through my feelings about her passing. So, I transformed the concept of my portfolio from “relationships through food” to “grief through food”. The characters featured in this comic, Kite, Harper, and Capillata, all reconcile with the death of a shared loved one in different ways, and all act as extensions of my own feelings. While I went into this comic only intending to explore themes of grief, another theme emerged that I hope I can extend to you through my work: Catharsis.
Live and eat well, everyone.
