Blackqube

GENESIS TRAMAINE – THE DEVOTIONAL PAINTER

Genesis Tramaine presents “Sweet Jesus” at Almine Rech Gallery, Paris, in a continuation of her creative ruminations on the many trials and tribulations that have come to define us as human beings in a progressively challenging environment. Through her paintings she is searching for ways to make sense of what she finds to be troubling in our society – injustice, discrimination, and a lack of care for each other.

As Tramaine often does when faced with a problem and seeks to process events occurring in the world around her, she looks inward and engages in deep prayer. Tramaine’s prayers provided a spiritual spark that catalyze the creation of her paintings – in this series as in previous ones. Her works can be seen as a visual ‘sermon’ that articulates her faith, amplifies her relationship with God, and provides a sanctuary for a world in need of healing.

Genesis Tramaine is a devotional painter who produces work that adroitly intertwines figurative and abstract mark-making into the pictorial plane resulting in the cultivation of a unique visual vocabulary. Every brushstroke is channeling the pain, fear, anguish, optimism, and joy that we all feel as human beings but can’t always articulate. Looking at a Genesis Tramaine painting is a reminder of what it means to be alive, present and connected to the people around us. Her work requires a different kind of viewing that encapsulates the importance of history, the power of religion, and the metamorphic impact that visual art can have on society.

Her canvases are imbued with a new level of pictorial movement resulting in a series of visually arresting paintings that continue to present the artist’s ideas, meditations, and expression of faith. The show presents pictures bursting with color, vibrating with rich line quality, and reflect the production of an artist who is genuinely in-tune with their creative capacity.

As a self-identified Black Queer Female Bodied painter from Brooklyn, Tramaine finds shelter from the world’s ills through prayer, song, movement, and painting. The act of painting is a cathartic space to commune with God and deepen her spiritual connection. Through this ritual, Genesis transcends into the flow of painting as a divine vessel that engages with the canvas.

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