A self-described “painter-comedian,” Bramson’s palette is a colorful array of beauty, humor, love, and lust. Bramson is a Rococo artist of the present day with an acute awareness for painting’s long history of male-gaze media. Engaging with imagery that depicts women as objects of affection rather than humans of individual agency, Bramson flips this narrative on its head by centering women’s empowerment and pleasure with her erotic anecdotes. The female figure is often enlarged in Bramson’s compositions, with male characters depicted in supporting or subservient roles such as holding the subject’s skirt. Her paintings carry an air of consciousness for proper decorum while at the same time contesting these traditions of etiquette and prescribed gender roles. She says, “In the studio I don’t practice good behavior. I maim; I raid; I give myself freedom.” It is this self-emancipatory action that characterizes her practice, connecting deeply with a feminist audience. You can read her interview with Lise McKean in
Bad at Sports here.
