Throughout decades, Phyllis Bramson embeds touchstones, keyholes, and compasses into her painted panoplies—reminiscent of the turned backs and stolen glances in Rococo's Watteau and Fragonard canvases. This practice is sly, rigorous, appropriative, conceptual, but also swollen with raw tenderness as it is sublimated through a fairytale surrealism wherein clowns and mimes, shepherdesses, princesses, geisha, naughty hybridized human-animals, serfs, courtesans, and coy dissenters stumble through the steps of dances half remembered. Bramson is not deterred by barriers prohibiting taboo; rather, her curiosities cut into transgression to better examine the conspiring histories, traumas, wishes, and dreams that are folded into the misdeeds of outsiders—painters chief among them. Bramson traverse motley montages of disjointed yet altogether seduction narrative which crisscrosses primal scenes like the excitement and terror of childhood discoveries of pornography; all the manipulation, tactics, distortions, veiled threats, advertising, apocrypha, and suggestions used to control women and their bodies; and the navigation of romance on one's own terms against the crushing expectations of social convention, gender roles, and history outright. All of this and more is sublimated through Bramson's painted islands of misfit [sex] toys. Like Kara Walker, Philip Guston, or Balthus, Bramson's aspersions are never bluntly unilateral in the ways favored by our present political moment. Instead, this work always signals to the messiness of desire, its contradictions, the unseemliness of wanting something you're told is inappropriate, and the tangle of repression and longing that persists despite those prohibitions. There are few artists working today more stalwart or resolved. RUSCHWOMAN is thrilled and humbled to inaugurate her questionnaire interview series with these insightful responses from the inimitable PHYLLIS BRAMSOM.



These questions have been gathered from the famous Proust questionnaire, Warhol’s Interview Magazine, James Lee Byars’ ‘100 Questions Project,’ confessional parlor games in the Victorian era, classic mid-century Cosmo quizzes, and a few inquiries of our own.





What are your beauty secrets?

First of all makeup, all of it except eyeshadow or mascara. I take very good care of my skin, except for getting enough sleep! Won’t leave the house without lipstick.





What’s the matter?

Oh boy, where should I start?

Phyllis Bramson. The Secret Life of People Who Care. 2010
Mixed media and oil on canvas, 60h x 70w in.



What is your greatest extravagance?

I guess to be honest, shoes.

Phyllis Bramson. For Whom the Shoe Fits (Cinderella). 2019
Mixed media and oil on canvas, 50h x 60w in.



What is your most treasured possession?

Don’t have one most treasured possession.



Do you keep a diary?

An informal one. I save certain emails, I will save this one when I am done. I have been using emails from others that mean something and how my answers reverberate back since August 2007 as a diary.





What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Alan Bramson, 62 years of happiness through thick and thin. He’s suddenly gone.


Alan Bramson



When and where were you happiest?

Basically, when I am in my studio and the work is going well. That experience comes and it goes. I was quite happy with two art residencies. In Australia at the Victorian School of the Arts on a Senior Fulbright in 1988. And then at the Marie Sharpe Foundation where I was granted six months with a supplied studio in New York City back in 1993.

Work from Marie Sharpe and Australia

Phyllis Bramson. Impersonator II. 1988
Pastel on paper, 50h x 42w in.



What was your first job?

I was a window display designer at Marshall Fields for two years—that now is Macy’s. The window designing was completely done from “scratch”, as Field’s took their windows very seriously and had a warehouse full of props, carpenters… the works. I can’t find any windows I did from that time, but this example is a good one of the Christmas window that a group of us designed and executed.





Which living person do you most admire?

Even though I am a Democrat, Lynn Chaney.



If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?

A balanced but very successful and famous artist, hoping that I could handle the stress that brings… and yes, callously... very tall, very beautiful.



What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Propriety and obedience. Particularly as a painter.

Phyllis Bramson. It's An Old Story... But A New Day. 2012
Mixed media and collage on canvas, 54h x 66w in.



Do you cook? If no, how do you feed yourself? If yes, do you have a signature recipe?

I barely cook, because I don’t want to give up studio time. However, I do have a signature recipe, (but because I rarely cook, not many people even know about it)... Chicken Saigon: Curry, honey, pineapple, lots of garlic, and garlic powder and of course, chicken. Served with Rice-aroni,underrated! Not a fancy eater in my studio. Not a foodie.



What did you have for breakfast?

I always have sandwiches, today I had a tuna fish sandwich with cheddar cheese.



How do you usually sleep?

Not in the nude! But SHE does!

Florine Stettheimer. A Model (nude self portrait). ca. 1915
Oil on canvas, 48 1/4h x 68 1/4w in.



What questions are you asking yourself?

I am trying to change my painting ways. So I am asking how will I do that, how can I change? Very often, I stand in front of a blank canvas and it is as if I have never made a painting before. It feels hateful!

Phyllis Bramson. Painting Partners (painting as a past time). 2021
Mixed media and collage on paper, 48h x 48w in.



Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

Lately, “I didn’t think about that."



Which talent would you most like to have?

The one I have! Once in a while, I do see an artist, such as Philip Guston, that I feel deep, deep envy for their work, and that can throw me off... in a good way.

Philip Guston. Monument. 1976
Oil on canvas, 80h x 110w in.



What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Having a consistent career and faith in myself and my work while being able to keep a marriage solid.



Describe your work space. What qualities do you need in your environment to do what you do?

Uncontrolled! I try not to care. I need to see out in the open, a lot of what has potential possibilities that might go into a painting. How detritus around me makes it into a painting, is sort of unexpected, unplanned and a surprise to me.





Describe your dream date.

He would have to be funny, a good talker, pretty good looking and respectful. A nice body wouldn’t hurt either! Not really in the market these days!


Paul Newman



Where would you most like to live?

New York City, but at a time when one could have bought a loft in the 70’s—certainly not now. I love living in Chicago, despite any complaints I might vent!



Which living person do you most despise?

Trump, Trump, Trump.





What do you most value in your friends?

Consistency, kindness, intelligence and the ability to handle life’s ups and downs... and not giving opinions that I didn’t ask for!



What do you most enjoy wearing?

Good looking suit jackets that can’t have much color and sharp looking shoes that fit.





Who are your favorite writers?

Gustave Flaubert, specifically... Madam Bovary and E. Annie Proulx, specifically... Shipping News.



Do you have a favorite film?

Magnolia



Is there an album or piece of music you listen to the most?

I don’t really listen to music, prefer public radio, day and into the night, but I do love old timey blues.



What are you reading right now?

The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal and The Legacy of Mark Rothko by Lee Seldes



Which historical figure do you most identify with?

If the question was actually... a painter from the past, that would be Florine Stettheimer.

Florine Stettheimer. Portrait of My Sister, Ettie Stettheimer. 1923
Oil on canvas laid on hardboard backing, 40 3/8h x 26 1/4w in.



Is there anything you regret not doing?

Moving to New York City after my first round of graduate school.



Favorite drink?

Coffee with Vanilla Coffee Mate® and cinnamon



Favorite smell?

Lily of the valley



Favorite color?

Actually the color NUDE.





Favorite time of day?

2AM – 4AM


Image courtesy of Jerry Saltz



Where do you dance?

These days, only in my studio!



Do you have anything going on or coming up you want to plug?

ENGAGE Projects Announces Representation of Phyllis Bramson
ENGAGE Projects has announced representation of Chicago artist and educator Phyllis Bramson. “A visual storyteller of romantic folly, tragedy, and comedic relief, Bramson is a surrealist painter best known for her maximalist style and cosmic disorder. A self-described ‘painter-comedian,’ Bramson’s palette is a colorful array of beauty, humor, love, and lust. Bramson is a Rococo artist of the present day with an acute awareness for painting’s long history of male gaze media. Engaging with imagery that depicts women as objects of affection rather than humans of individual agency, Bramson flips this narrative by centering women’s empowerment and pleasure with her erotic anecdotes,” the gallery writes. Bramson received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1963 followed by her MA in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1964 and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Bramson is an advisor to MFA students at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. More here.



Where can people find you?Website address? Instagram handle?

www.phyllisbramson.com

@PhyllisBramson on Instagram