Trained in the United Kingdom, where she quickly became part of the contemporary art scene, Brathwaite moved to Caracas in 1969. She arrived drawn by an artistic environment in which new tendencies—abstraction, kinetic art, and later conceptual art—were actively promoted. This context enabled rich creative exchanges with colleagues such as Gego and Mercedes Pardo, as well as with critics and curators including Lourdes Blanco and Marta Traba.
Brathwaite was recognized early on for her drawings, prints, and sculptures infused with organic and sensual resonances that, in her words, stem from her “fascination with the overwhelming beauty of mountains, rocks, stones, exotic plants, women’s breasts and legs, men’s torsos, sunsets, and the marvelous bodies of animals.” She expressed this in 1972, when she publicly presented her abstract drawings and cemented her presence within a milieu that received her with great enthusiasm and in which she went on to participate continuously.
The title of this exhibition is drawn from a review written by critic Roberto Guevara for Brathwaite’s solo show at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1975. It includes a series of works on paper produced between 1972 and 2002, along with the group of soft sculptures she has been creating since 2004. In this “flowing path of her own,” what becomes evident is not only the independence of her work but also the pioneering character of her production. Through varied media and a delicate interplay between abstraction and figuration, Brathwaite offers a feminine vision deeply rooted in ecology, merging the forms of nature to express the connection that unites and runs through all living things.
