Transformation and metamorphosis: this is the theme of the vernissage of the painter-poet Johanna Braverman which took place at “Mina Image Centre” on Wednesday evening. A spiritual and committed artist, Ms. Braverman takes her visitors on a journey into a new dimension where geometry and occultism reign. A world where time no longer has any meaning, where “evolution” and “revolution” intertwine and come to light.
Geometry and shapes are at the center of Johanna Braverman’s watercolors. She explores how shapes and color dynamics can create optical music of rhythm and meaning. A “music” released by forms that can be rational, concrete, figurative or abstract.
The painter approaches painting as a kind of “visual poetics”, which is positioned halfway between her writings and her painting. It contextualizes and encompasses the various art movements. Suprematism, geometric abstraction are declined in multiple fields of color.
She illustrates this artistic movement in her collection “An Ever-Changing Stream”, “a flow in constant evolution”, within which she is influenced by religio-philosophical concepts drawn from India, where geometry is as sacred as art and alchemy. This artistic school mainly addresses concepts of transformation, refinement of consciousness, as well as the interconnection between energy and matter, microcosm and macrocosm, interior and exterior, unity and multiplicity.
“I am a very spiritual person. I think that today meditation, spirituality and knowing how to appreciate the present moment are lost. I focus a lot on these aspects of my life so that I can awaken my senses and perceive the changes around me,” says Johanna Braverman.
“An Ever-Changing Stream” offers a spiritual path for the individual to navigate between the outer and inner levels. The artist develops this subject by focusing on feminism and her status as a woman: “Mutations are present in the lives of women and men. As a woman, I can say that we go through a lot of transformations in our lives whether on a monthly hormonal level during menstruation, or even during our pregnancy. With age, transformations on a physiological level, but also psychologically occur. This axis is constantly in my mind when I begin to paint a canvas. This is why I mainly use watercolor paint. The subtlety of this paint allows me to play on colors and transparency to delicately illustrate these changes”, continues the painter.
This transformation illustrated by the painter takes place over several stages, twelve to be more specific. A figure present not only in his watercolors, but also in his poetic fragments. The artist invites his public to live the experience of his art as a story, a passage that happens in twelve stages.
Twelve is a number that carries symbolic weight in a diversity of traditions, spanning the religious, the mythical and the mystical. It represents completion and plenitude, thus affirming its affinity with the circle, a form that reflects the path of transformation with its endless circuit.
In many religious, mythological or mystical traditions, the number twelve can represent unity, completion, cosmic order and harmony. There are many examples: hours in the day, months of the year, signs of the zodiac, etc. The artist then chooses to operate by highlighting the number twelve to encompass the divine meaning of the number, but also its aspect of plenitude, illustrated by the shapes, in particular the circle.
On an even more philosophical level, the concepts of “Transformation” and “Plenitude” being the common thread of the painter’s art, lead to a transformation and a regeneration of the self which can be intertwined with Platonic thought, illustrated in the allegory of Plato’s cave. The allegory symbolizes a journey at the psychological and identity level that frees man from the chains of society, vices, illusions to achieve wisdom and plenitude. Johanna Braverman and Plato both illustrate this passage “from shadow to light” by a metamorphosis of the self. The artist’s paintings then embody an evolution similar to that of Plato’s cave.
As for the circle, it represents infinity in a cyclical way, reminiscent of the regeneration and eternal renewal of nature, but also on a personal level. This cyclic transformation which applies to the “Self”, is not static. “Sometimes the old must be ‘devoured’ to make way for the new, in a recurring process of transformation and rebirth that takes place throughout a lifetime”, reveals the painter. This story is illustrated in several of these paintings where it focuses on human vision, where it emphasizes the difference between “vision” and “perception”. Certain black circles then hide the colored circles, which begin to reappear clearly in the rest of the canvases, thus symbolizing the regeneration of a complete vision, which covers the real world and the spiritual world.
To complete her multi-dimensional approach, line, form and color come together in Ms. Braverman’s watercolors to represent a kind of metaphysical language, which allows an exploration of concepts and energies. Just as transformation proceeds in its own way and in its own time, the emergence of these patterns and forms is developmental and intuitive.
The opening of the painter took place in a small committee, where family and close friends were present. Members of his family have expressed their feelings about the artist’s work: “It’s incredible to see all these paintings that fill the gallery. When we look at the paintings individually, we can’t to realize the quantity of works or the titanic work that has been done. When I see this gallery, I am proud of my wife, and of my favorite artist”, confides her husband to us. Her two children also express themselves: “It is a source of pride to have Johanna Braverman as a mother. With her art, she pushes us towards the best, to explore our limits and to pursue our ambitions”, they explain to us.
Mario Doueiry
@mariodoueiry
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Between art, poetry and philosophy: a platonic painter surprises