Patricia Brentano Bramnick |
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Pat Brentano Bramnick of Westfield, New Jersey was recently awarded the Lillian Heller Curators Award at the “Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood 2009 Exhibition” in Stockbridge Massachusetts for her “Endangered Birds Installation”. The birds have traveled to Pittsfield, Massachusetts for an outdoor sculpture exhibition in November. Her “Missing Trees Installation” is on view in the “Downtown Sculpture in the Streets Exhibition’ in Albany, New York until March 2010. In 2008, she received a Puffin Grant to install her “Missing Trees” in Highland Park, New Jerseyand at the Institute for Women’s Leadership, Rutgers University. In 2006 she received a New Jersey State Council of the Arts Individual Fellowship in works on paper. Earning a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Bramnick has a strong background in drawing and it has become the scaffolding for her sculpture. Pat teaches drawing and painting at Kean University and she taught a class on visual awareness at Rutgers in 2007. This fall she will be part of a class on sustainability at Union County College in Cranford, New Jersey. Pat's work is about observation, exploration and a deep spiritual attachment to the natural world. Her goal is to call attention to what is endangered, threatened or has already disappeared in the environment and to remind us to preserve what remains. Bramnick aims to create skillful, innovative work that promotes visual literacy and inspires environmental responsibility. She believes artists have always had the power to educate and affect social change. | ||
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Endangered, Threatened and Special Concern Birds of Connecticut Bramnick's installation is made up of fifty "3-dimensional drawings" using nature as the palette. It is my intention to use the light which creates a contour line on the cut edge of each negative to define the bird's shape and to use the colors of nature which show through the negative to give it life. When the sun is shining the shadows from the surrounding trees and grasses create patterns on the surface of the aluminum integrating the piece into the environment. We do not own nature. We are a part of it. As a visual artist Bramnick feels she has the opportunity to inspire and educate through my work. The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection lists 50 species of birds as Endangered, Threatened or Special Concern because of loss or change in habitat, over exploitation, predation, disturbance or contamination. Her piece is meant to call attention to those specific birds and to inspire environmental responsibility for the preservation of the natural world. |
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