Mog Bremner

Mog Bremner

I came to art later in life after a career as a doctor and psychotherapist, which informs my interest in our sense of self – that inner feeling of ‘I’ and ‘me’ which has been called the sense of ‘going-on-being’.

I trained in both Textiles and Printmedia and drawing. Paper and cloth can be composed of the same fibres – cotton, linen and silk – but appear to be very different materials. I like to use this apparent dichotomy to highlight what I see as the false duality of mind and physical brain, and I often mix both textile and paper imagery and techniques in my work.

Plasticity 2010
Medium: Ink on paper
Size:  Overall dimensions variable
25 drawings, each one 18cm x 24cm

Artist’s Statement:
I am interested in the nature of self, particularly the extraordinary transformation from the objective physical world of neurones and synapses to our subjective experience of thought and feeling, perception and memory. 

The brain is a dynamic mobile network, and self and consciousness arise from the ceaseless interactions of billions of neurones. Here I use observational drawings of bird netting to suggest this surprising emergence of our sense of self.

The title ‘Plasticity’ refers to the ability of the brain to rewire itself: the individual component of this drawing can be put together in many different ways, with a different outcome each time.

Photographer Stuart Hay