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Genesis Tramaine Facing Giants'

May 16 — Nov 2, 2025 | Consortium Museum, Dijon, France

Painting has been free from the purpose of narrating the lives of Saints for a long time: of the emancipations characterizing the history of the avant-gardes, this one might be the oldest. But Genesis Tramaine, an American mathematician, former algebra teacher in her forties, turned totally self-taught “devotional painter,” features the lives of saints in her canvases and has some revelations to make.

“I think it’s important that you paint a real narrative, an honest reflection. I don’t think [my saints] look like saints as they have been given to us...[those] were false narratives,” explains Genesis Tramaine. She elaborates, “The images of saints that we know and that are projected at us are all white with blond hair—and we all know that that is not true.”
She has also forged a style that makes her portraits (she only paints portraits) immediately recognizable and openly shares their stylistic lineage: George Condo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francis Bacon, etc. Moreover, the whole history of the portrait comes together in this unprecedented fresco.

Genesis Tramaine has created some fifteen canvases and drawings for the exhibition Facing Giants. Shown for the first time at the Consortium Museum, these new works continue her singular project.
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