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SIX MEN

Cecily Brennan

10 - 22 Nov

The film SIX MEN describes the lives of six fictional men. Sad Man, The Battler, The Voice Hearer, The Roller, Circadian Man and Rage, aged between 19 and 75 years who are suffering from, or have suffered from, psychotic breakdown triggered by a variety of forces trauma, drug abuse, stress, lack of sleep.

What connects these six men but also keeps them utterly apart is their psychosis. In this work, Cecily Brennan tries to limit concerns to a specific aspect of this complex subject – an imagining of what it means to be mad, in particular to be psychotic.

SIX MEN focuses on the fragmentation of self, the altering of person, reality, vision, sound: the hallucinations and delusions which are the psychotic person’s reality. Everything is changed, fragmented, riven and smashed when a psychotic state is triggered, but this fragmentation of self is experienced by the sufferer as being utterly real, entirely authentic, with an illusion of agency indistinguishable from reality.

These men do not see themselves as psychotic. Although each one finds themselves in intolerable pain, they are also utterly sure of the truth of their experience.

Identity becomes a complex and complicated issue at the same time as it is felt to be certain.

Group Group Funder Credits

Funded by The Arts Council of Ireland.

Group Group Production Credits

Written and Directed by Cecily Brennan

Produced by Raw Grá Productions.

The Roller 

Actor: Patrick Noonan 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh 

The Voice Hearer 

Actor: Karim Ahmed Tamu 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh

Sad Man 

Actor: Anthony Kirwan 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh 

Circadian Man 

Actor: Fergus Cronin 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh 

Rage 

Actor: Paul Roe 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh 

The Battler 

Actor: Michael James Ford 

Image created by Cecily Brennan 

Photographer: Ros Kavanagh 

Group Group Biographies

Cecily Brennan is an Irish artist, born in 1954. She graduated from the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and has shown extensively nationally and internationally. Her work is held in all of the major Irish public and private collections.

Her work addresses psychological damage and recovery, both metaphorically, in landscape, in depictions of skin diseases and their treatment, in basic science demonstrations, and directly, through film and video work, considering grief, self-harm, melancholia and psychosis.

Her practice encompasses film, photography, drawing, printmaking, painting (in gesso, oil and watercolour), casting, and sound.

She is currently making a body of work, centred around a film, supported by an Arts Council project award, which presents psychosis in six imagined men.

She was elected to membership of Aosdána in 1991 and is currently Chair of its organising committee, the Toscaireacht. She helped establish the Visual Arts Centre, a shared studio space, and served on various Boards and committees associated with the arts in Ireland.

She was a founder of the Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the Eight Amendment, which was part of the successful campaign to guarantee reproductive rights to Irish women.

Her show PRESSURE at the Glucksman Gallery in Cork is was in November 2025; PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS FROM THE SIX MEN PROJECT was at the Taylor Galleries in Dublin from 13th February to 8th March 2025; her film SIX MEN will be in the Cube in the Project Arts Centre in Dublin in November 2025.

She is represented by the Taylor Galleries in Dublin.

Raw Grá Productions CEO EMMA KEANE. A storytelling project founded in 2023 by freelance producer Emma Keane. This site lists some of the projects which Emma has worked on, either for Raw Grá Productions or as a freelancer for other production outfits.

Group Group
The Roller
Actor: Patrick Noonan
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
The Voice Hearer
Actor: Karim Ahmed Tamu
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
Sad Man
Actor: Anthony Kirwan
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
Circadian Man
Actor: Fergus Cronin
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
Rage
Actor: Paul Roe
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
The Battler
Actor: Michael James Ford
Image created by Cecily Brennan
Photographer: Ros Kavanagh
Group Group
Group Group
Group Group
Group Group
Dates

10 - 22 Nov (Closed Sundays)

Tickets

Free to attend, no booking requried

Times

11am, 11:30am, 12pm, 12:30pm, 13:00, 13:30, 14:00, 14:30, 15:00, 15:30, 16:00, 16:30, 17:00, 17:30, 18:00, 18:30, 19:00, 19:30

Important: No public screening from 6:30pm onwards on Mon 10 November. Closed for private event.

Space

The Cube

Warnings

This film contains distressing themes. Contains strong language. Recommended age 14+.

Genres

FilmVisual Art
https://vimeo.com/
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