Situated on and within Frank Lloyd Wright’s Graycliff, Finding Room places Braman’s work in conversation with an architectural masterpiece. In their practices, Wright (American, 1867–1959) and Braman explore the relationship of nature and found elements to humanmade objects, drawing attention to lived experience with deceivingly simple formal gestures. Wright combined precast concrete, glass, and wood to create the intricate details of the Prairie Style architecture that became his legacy, and Braman uses the same materials to create forms that revere commonly overlooked aspects of daily life. The interaction between natural and humanmade materials, and perhaps especially, the dialogue between light and glass, is a springboard for both artists.
Braman’s sculptures can be viewed in relationship to the formal legacies of modernism, like Color Field painting and Minimalist sculpture. Instead of the white cube gallery space and what it implies, Braman’s preferred context is domestic, so that the sculptures be experienced as part of one’s everyday life. As such, placing her sculptures in a home that is itself part of the modernist tradition yet also carries the warmth and intimacy of a beloved family home, underscores how Braman’s work both resists and embraces modernist traditions to reconsider our lived environment.
