Työskentelen kuvataiteen (maalaus, piirustus, liveperformanssi), aikuistaidepedagogiikan ja organisaatioiden taidelähtöisen kehittämisen, koulutuksen ja valmennuksen parissa. Koulutukseltani olen taiteen maisteri (The Glasgow School of Art 2012) sekä psykologian maisteri (Helsingin yliopisto 2006). Olen toiminut kuvataiteilijana monialaisissa hankkeissa kuten ilmasto-opetuksessa 2015-2016, Helsingin kaupungin nuorena taiteilijana 2014-2015, Helsingin kaupunginmuseon Kehollinen kaupunki- yhteisötaideprojektissa 2015 sekä esitystaiteellisissa projekteissa eri alojen taiteilijoiden kanssa. Opetan kehittämääni Ruumiinkuvia-kurssia Kriittisessä korkeakoulussa ja Teatterikorkeakoulussa. Olen pitänyt näyttelyitä Suomessa, Iso-Britanniassa ja Yhdysvalloissa (19 yksityisnäyttelyä, 39 yhteisnäyttelyä), sekä osallistunut residensseihin Lontoossa, New Yorkissa ja Kilpisjärvellä. Näyttelyreferenssejäni ovat mm. Galleria Jangva, Helsingin Kaupunginmuseo Sofiankadulla, Bermondsey Project Room (Lontoo), Triangle Arts (New York) ja The Lighthouse (Glasgow). Olen Helsingin taiteilijaseuran, MUU ry:n ja Pro Soveltavan Taiteen ry:n jäsen.

Elina Aho-Brennan´s (b. 1981) paintings and drawings take the viewer to the embodied experience of the world and the body. She researches the embodiment of emotions, the perception of movement and the physicality of painting and drawing in her artistic practice. Her multifaceted background in the arts, psychology, neuroscience and movement practices give innate depth to her work. She works both in drawing with self-invented charcoal tools, pencil and ink, and in painting (oil on paper and canvas, and mixed media works). She is very interested in the perceiving and experiencing part of the human psyche, and the body and mind- connection. Her abstracted paintings of the lived, bodily experience is represented simultaneously, side by side, with drawings of the human body and movement. She works with professional dancers while drawing the human body and movement.

In her art works she strives to attack the canvas with embodied energy, sometimes soft and delicate, sometimes more aggressive and physical, while being very much in the present moment and the action of painting becoming like free association. She is also striving to obtain a very direct, physical, almost raw sense of human experience. She is interested in portraying the life forces in the canvases and her works can be felt via their tactile and material qualities, full of life, even erotic forces, and aggression.

Elina has graduated from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art in 2012 with Merit (Master´s Degree in Fine Art Practice, Painting) and she has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Finland, UK, and USA. Furthermore, she has worked in collaboration with professionals from contemporary dance, physical theatre and sound art in her innovative live drawing performances. She has been also curating both local and international exhibitions and creating an artist-led gallery space (Art Lab Viiskulma, Helsinki). Elina´s artistic practice has also formed through artist residencies abroad, at School of Visual Arts in New York (2011), Triangle Residency in Brooklyn (2015), and Royal College of Arts in London (2017). Her teaching expertise is strong and vast, with current teaching practice at The University of the Arts Helsinki and Critical Academy Helsinki. She has also worked with multiple organizations and multidisciplinary projects as an artist or a facilitator, to name a few: City of Helsinki Executive Office Young Artist 2014-2015, Climate.Now-project 2015-2016, Helsinki City Museum and Drawing D5 Gallery Embodied City- community art project 2015-2017. She has also been coaching artists and students in their work life skills, currently in collaboration with Kaakon Taide, University of the Arts Helsinki and University of Helsinki.