Pamela Bramble has long been interested in 13th and 14th century Italian frescoes that have been made fragile and altered by time. In Italy she studied the frescoes of Giotto di Bondoni in Padua and Assisi and those painted by Piero della Francesco in Arezzo. In addition to their original intent, the frescoes have become a lens through which one can perceive an unfolding past. The artist’s work also focuses on nature and on the process of painting – specifically how the activity itself establishes content. The evolving surface of her paintings create a chronology of mark-making that elicits, through the determinism of process, an empathetic response. Like the palimpsest, the remnants of earlier marks imperfectly erased and gone over several times, records time and activity. Her series Palimpsest, the Metamorphosis Series and most recently her Excavation Series, are about creation, destruction, and the passage of time.
Artist's Statement
For me, artistic creation is a journey, it is the road that leads from thought, through search to discovery. The destination is not necessarily predetermined, for the journey itself is of primary significance. This concept is a philosophical one that I have been drawn to for a very long time. It is a central theme found in literature, film, music and visual arts. The journey motif defies time and the bounds of culture and I see an intrinsic power in it.
I have always been interested in how the process of painting – the activity itself – establishes content. I work and rework the paintings until form and content merge. Layered brushwork, the effects of paint removal, incised and inflected line, eventually establish spaces that resonate with color. The chaos of the earliest layers are harnessed and refined. It is in the evolution of a painting where the residue of earlier activity on the surface maintains
a presence that infuses and energizes subsequent layers of paint.
The evolving surface of my paintings creates a chronology of mark-making that elicits through the determinism of process an empathetic response. Like the palimpsest, the remnants of earlier marks imperfectly erased and gone over several times, records time and activity that has ceased and is now still.
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