Aesthetic Expression: Genesis Tramaine: The Revelatory Nature of Artistic Creation
Gazing upon the painting Jesus Loves Me (2021), the viewer is taken aback. There is something about his face. It’s marred in black outlines. Multiple eyes plot the surface area of his expression; brown and red tones delineate hair and teeth. The figures, painted with what appears to be a strong, swung arm, gestural brushstrokes coating the canvas, are expressive and transport the viewer to a different plane. Though there is an undisputed auteur quality to them, they appear as if they were conceived in revelation, a hand cast in religious fervor.
Genesis Tramaine is no stranger to religion or its impact on contemporary life. Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised on the vivid images of gospel hymns and Bible verses in the 1980s. Her Neo-Expressionist “worship works” are enmeshed in her religious identity. She employs lyrical images from biblical verses to comment on the role religion plays in art and how faith serves as a narrative device for living. Her art education began at LaGuardia High School in Manhattan, where she studied visual art, and continued at Pace University and Utica College of Syracuse University. Tramaine’s work is part of a powerful lineage of 21st-century social and theological commentary on current societal affairs. In an interview, Tramaine explains how the church is inseparable from her early start in art-making. “I didn’t have much paper, so I would draw on magazines, on newspapers, on Bibles," she said. "I was being trained to be who I am from a very young age. But my family didn’t necessarily call it art. It was just Genesis, drawing as usual.”
Genesis Tramaine’s impact on the contemporary art world is vast as it is singular. Her abstract paintings of men and women are often described as “imbued with emotion, devotion, and soundless musicality,” but Tramaine’s use of materials is just as striking. Read the description of materials used from any of her paintings, and you will find a mixture of traditional media like acrylic, oil sticks, and unconventional ritualistic materials like rainwater and kitchen salt. In the gallery editorial descriptions, Tramaine often credits the Holy Spirit as an essential material aiding her practice. Inspired by urban graffiti art in 1960s New York, Tramaine’s paintings are reminiscent in style of Kehinde Wiley’s and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s evocative emotional renderings, which may be familiar for their stylistic gravitas. Tramaine’s unique artistic methodology stems from her vantage point of utilizing the studio as a sanctuary, not only as a space where creation simply occurs. Tramaine often claims to surrender to the Holy Spirit as a vessel for creation, as if powered by it in her creative process. She describes her practice as a digestion and regurgitation of everyday life. Tramaine focuses mainly on the shape and definition of the American Black Face, where she casts images of biblical saints and narratives, disrupting the historical Eurocentric religious iconography depicted in the artistic canon. In this way, Tramaine offers an unconventional look at sainthood, peering into deeply human themes like insanity, sentimentality, and spirituality in her underrepresented subjects. Tramaine works from this perspective to paint impactful compositions imbued with deep faith and a strong sense of self.
Gimme Some Sugar is Tramaine’s debut monograph published by Phaidon and Montacelli. Bound in a tactical faux-leather indigo case and embossed with a cross-like gold monogram on the front cover, Gimme Some Sugar is also an allusion to The Bible, another homage to her devotional background. In the back, the monograph features a mini-sketchbook insert with pages that reveal Tramaine’s line drawing studies for her large installation-sized paintings.
Spotlighted by Alimine Rech Gallery, where her work has been exhibited five times, in a recent talk with the award-winning actor-producer David Alan Grier, Tramaine explains how her faith and upbringing in the Black Pentecostal and Southern Baptist traditions served as a vital catalyst for her artwork. Gimme Some Sugar is a testament that illustrates how her dual identity as a devout queer woman shapes her perception of the world. Paintings like David and Goliath (2020) or Evidence of Grace (2021) are allusions to religion, but Gimme Some Sugar presents a more intimate look into the artist’s dynamic portraiture and how her faith is inextricable from her own creative study.
Based in Newark, New Jersey, Tramaine’s solo exhibitions span worldwide. Her first solo show was with Almine Rech in London in February 2020, and since then, her work has appeared in Brussels, Aspen, and New York. Her presence in the abstract art world was highlighted in the 2023-24 exhibition, The Echo of Picasso at the Museo Picasso in Malaga, Spain, where her work was included among expressionist artists like Richard Prince and Cy Twombly.
Tramaine’s work has caught the interest of celebrity clients like Zendaya and Law Roach. Roach owns an installation-sized painting displayed in his Los Angeles home. In the December 2020 issue of Vanity Fair, Zendaya expressed her admiration for the painter’s piece Boy Saint of Judah’s Tribe (2020), which she cites as a staple in her home decor collection.
Tramaine’s body of work is a living theology, a consecrated, personal archive of Black spiritual life rendered in bold lines and vibrant color. Her canvases pull the viewer into a reckoning with faith, identity, and the sacredness of what it means to be human. Genesis Tramaine remains a vessel; her hand moves, and something larger moves through it.
