Trina Brammah
Trina Brammah is a British-born painter who has lived in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, for the past sixteen years. Trina graduated with a BA (hons) in Fine Art from the University of Sunderland in the UK, majoring in sculpture. After graduation she continued her creative research at the Cyprus College of Art in Limassol, Cyprus, completing a Post Graduate in Fine Art Painting in 2004.
Trina originally came to South America in 2006 to live with a semi-nomadic tribe in Bolivia. She intended to research these indigenous communities, and their cosmo-vision (world-view) as it related to her own Western experience.
Trina seeks to address and integrate the teachings and wisdom of the Indigenous Peruvian knowledge base, into her work. A world where plants are sacred and regarded as master teachers and the universe is considered a living connected consciousness.
During the past fourteen years Trina primarily explored visionary states and dreams. Since childhood she had struggled with hypnagogic hallucinations and came to South America to seek understanding for her visions. During this period she has explored various indigenous healing methods, such as ayahuasca purging and plant dieta (the ingestion of a master plant over a period of time). Her paintings on canvas during this period are a visual diary of her experiences and visionary world. Where she explored spiritual ideas and universal symbols, which are related to the transformation of consciousness.
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After many years exploring the interior world her investigation has shifted direction. Trina was invited to an indigenous ceremony in the Kechwa communities. A ceremony intended to transform the intense sadness of a community that had lost one year previous, a two-year-old baby. The whole community danced all night to a repetitive sound, traditional music called Pandilla. The concept of shifting sadness or any unwanted blockage, through movement has inspired a different course of investigation. The relationship between the physical body and a sacred visionary language hidden within it. The question of our physical body, in relationship with the totality of a living connected consciousness.
Natural found pigments
Trina decided to stop buying factory-processed paints in 2005. This inspired her to spend the last fifteen years researching and creating pigments. The knowledge she has collected over the years has inspired many artists. To learn about this natural approach to painting with locally sourced pigments. Part of her research is plant dyes which we can convert into durable paint. Trina makes her paintings using local traditional indigenous dying methods.
All of her paintings are 90% naturally sourced, found in the rivers, mountains and indigenous villages of Peru. The plant, stone and earth pigments carry information about the places they were collected, which adds an underlying power to her paintings.
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Hand made paper and indigenous dying techniques
The background of her paintings play an important role in the concept, as she is looking to source her own materials and is making her own paper and researching indigenous dying methods. Once she can make her own paper from mushrooms, banana stems etc the possibility of scale can be endless and the investigation into dying techniques essential if we are to protect this knowledge and give it value.
As Trina explores her visionary path, the paintings have taken her on a journey of discovery - behind the shield of reality
Articles:
https://www.arte-amazonia.com/gallerie/painting/trina-lerner-brammah/
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Eleven Otherworldly Visionary And Ayahuasca Artists You Probably Don’t Know -
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