Genesis Tramaine’s striking, near-abstract portraits of Black subjects take inspiration from biblical hymns and the scrawling figuration of 1980s New York graffiti art. The Brooklyn-born artist has exhibited at galleries in New York, Paris, Brussels, London, and Shanghai. In 2020, she was an artist in residence at the Rubell Museum in Miami. Tramaine’s religious upbringing informs the devotional aesthetic of her portraiture—which aims to capture the spiritual essence of her Black sitters—as well as her materials; Tramaine often lists “Yeshua,” in reference to the Hebrew word for Jesus, alongside “oil sticks” and “acrylic.” “Yeshua is the source!” she told Artsy in 2020. “The sauce! The magic!...Without Yeshua, it’s just paint.”

Genesis Tramaine

American

Main

Artist

Printer

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Black Woman University