Jackie Braitman Works

Artist's Statement

My work investigates how emotional tension is magnified in the rhythm of our movements. I started working in glass in 2003 -- largely self-taught with occasional workshops with nationally known glass artists including Roger Thomas, Steve Klein, and Jane Bruce. My artistic language comes from the worlds of architecture, geology and dance movement. I enjoyed early success including selection in 2004 into a show curated by Sally Hanson: “Transformed by Fire: Glass Today – An International Review” and as a finalist for “E-merge 2004” a biennial international art glass competition.

Since late 2006 I’ve been developing a sculptural language that uses clean architectural forms to reference the human figure in motion -- a language that encompasses figures in tension, at balance and out of balance as individuals wrestle with emotion and conflict.

I am also an architectural designer spending each day at the intersection of art, architecture, and design: The differences are of scale and technical requirement. With both glass sculpture and architecture I work with space and light to evoke emotion. With sculpture, I work in isolation to explore concepts and relationships. My audience is potentially large but unknown. The technical challenges are in the execution. In many ways, architectural design is sculpture on a larger scale where a smaller, known audience experiences the sculpture intimately from within and without and over time periods of days, weeks, and years. The technical challenges come at the design phase where 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.