The scything lines that traverse the face of Genesis Tramaine’s Saint. Mother. Mary., 2019, punctuate a vision of the religious icon that is not marred, but rather refigured. Replicated eyes, noses and lips flicker across Mary’s face, executed in thick, graffiti-like strokes against multicolored flesh. Her striking blue hair, gathered into two youthful pigtails, is amplified by the rusted orange ground, a loud rejection of Eurocentric imagery of Mary as a demure blonde. The work is a transcendent portrait that fulfills Tramaine’s self-identification as a “devotional painter”: a devout Christian, Tramaine’s artistic and religious practices are deeply intertwined. She locates the catalyst for her creative process in the divine realm, explaining: “Without Yeshua, it ain’t nothing. It’s not my hand alone that delivers the work, I’m just a vessel. Without Yeshua, it’s just paint.”i Yeshua (the Hebrew precursor of the name “Jesus”) permeates Tramaine’s creations; for the artist, the act of painting is a meditative exercise of religious contemplation, serving as a deeply personal form of worship. Exhibited at Almine Rech, Paris in 2019, the present work commands attention like an impassioned preacher delivering a sermon.
Saint. Mother. Mary. harnesses the multiplicity of the artist’s identity, orienting her work towards the marginalized communities to which she belongs as a Black, queer woman. Defying those who assume the different facets of her identity as irreconcilable with her faith, all the elements that constitute Tramaine coalesce in her work. Her portraits transcend gender and racial signifiers, working to resist and dismantle the hegemonic canon of religious art.
“I don’t think that the gospel has a specific color. I’d rather use color to express devotion in that space, rather than painting a race over a portrait. God is bigger than white Jesus. We all deserve access to God.”
—Genesis TramaineIn this radical portrait of Mary, Tramaine subverts normative imagery of the saint, focusing not on her purity or maternal affect, but her individuality and emotions. Tramaine distorts and rearranges the figure’s facial features, with multiple sets of eyes, lips, and noses pushing beyond corporeal expectations. This tactic is highly evocative of Pablo Picasso’s deconstructed Cubist portraits, continuing an artistic lineage that rejects the immediate legibility of the human form. In the present work, Tramaine ventures beyond Picasso’s investigation of form and dimension, inviting the ineffable into her practice and imbuing the canvas with the ethereal divinity that anchors her identity.
Tramaine’s fragmented figuration in Saint. Mother. Mary. also evokes the works of artist Mickalene Thomas, best known for her rhinestone-encrusted collages. For both Tramaine and Thomas, the body is a malleable site of identity formation and self-expression; this is especially contentious for Black individuals, who have historically been treated as monolithic. While Thomas’s portraits regard the viewer directly, Tramaine’s fragmented Mary holds our gaze through a multitude of refracted eyes, enthralling and perturbing the viewer all at once. As Black, queer women, Genesis Tramaine and Mickalene Thomas both grapple with complex intersectional identities through fractured portraiture.
Mickalene Thomas, September 1977, 2021. Artwork: © 2024 Mickalene Thomas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Ultimately, despite being a portrait, Genesis Tramaine’s Saint. Mother. Mary. does not claim to be a definitive representation of the saint. Instead, it is the realization of the divine message conveyed to the artist, shaped by her experiences as a Black, queer woman. The artist is steadfast about her onus as a painter, explaining: “It’s a painted language, sister. It surpasses our literal language. Sometimes it’s easy to understand and sometimes it goes right over my head. It’s interesting to be given a responsibility to paint for the future.”ii
i Genesis Tramaine, quoted in Daria Simone Harper, “Painter Genesis Tramaine is Transforming What it Means to Make Religious Art,” Artsy, June 19, 2020, online.
ii Genesis Tramaine, quoted in Katie White, “‘I’ve Learned to Lean on God’: Rising Artist Genesis Tramaine on How She Channels Her Christian Faith Into Ecstatic Portraits,” Artnet, September 9, 2021, online.
Condition Report
Description
View our Conditions of Sale.
Provenance
Almine Rech, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2009Exhibited
Paris, Almine Rech, Chorus, October 12—November 16, 2019
15
Saint. Mother. Mary
signed and dated "G—Tramaine 19'" on the turnover edge; signed, titled, inscribed and dated "THIS IS A PORTRAIT OF SAINT. MOTHER. MARY. This is really happening Gen. To God be all glory. The lord held my hand while this work came G—Tramaine" on the overlap
acrylic, oilstick and spray paint on canvas
72 1/8 x 59 7/8 in. (183.2 x 152.1 cm)
Executed in 2019.
Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000
Avery Semjen
Specialist, Head of New Now Sale
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com
New Now: Modern & Contemporary Art
New York Auction 25 September 2024