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Jackie Braitman
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My work investigates how rhythm and motion affect our emotional outlook and how, in turn, our emotions are revealed in our body language.
Throughout our evolution, it is with movement and rhythm that we modify our emotions to prepare ourselves for life’s challenges. The tribal dance that paves the way for the success of the hunting party is eerily similar to the pas-de-deux of young lovers on the dance floor. Both employ movement and rhythm to influence and strengthen the emotional resolve of the participants. It’s sufficient to observe motion to be affected emotionally. Merely watching the seductive motion of muscles in action – the leap of a dancer, the chase of a jaguar – causes our stride to lengthen and our shoulders to push back with confidence and enthusiasm.
Ultimately my investigation of motion and emotion leads to an exploration of juxtapositions – the transparency of movement and the translucency of words, the energy of inspiration and the lethargy of sadness, the clarity of purpose and the confusion of conflict, the inbounds and the out-of-bounds.
My sculptural work and high-relief wall art is both figurative and abstract – often combining the two. The glass is alternately the figure and the effect of motion in our physical and mental space as the figure moves through that space. I use varied levels of translucency and opacity along with varied surfaces to help define the juxtaposition of rhythm and emotion. My flat wall art, is largely abstract, using juxtapositions of color, form and clarify to suggest the relationship between the rhythm of our lives and our emotions.
I am also an architectural designer (www.braitmandesign.com). And I spend each day at the intersection of art, architecture, and design. The differences are of scale and technical requirement. With sculpture, I seek to express and influence emotion. Architectural design is sculpture on a larger scale where a smaller audience experiences the sculpture intimately from within and without and over time periods of days, weeks, and years. With sculpture I can be provocative; with architecture I need to evoke the positive emotions and energies of my client. With sculpture I need not consider the aims of others; with design I fail unless I achieve the needs of my client. With sculpture I need only ensure that it is internally stable; with architecture, I must meet a myriad of codes and regulations that may be at odds with the aesthetics of my client. Paradoxically, it is the daily rigors of meeting the demands of others that helps me understand and meet my own artistic voice. And vice versa.
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