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Sura


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Image of Sura

Sura
Painting

2002
66 x 66 in. (167.64 x 167.64 cm)

Jamie Brunson (Coronado, California, October 21, 1955 - )

Object Type: Painting
Medium and Support: Oil and alkyd on panel
Credit Line: Gift of William and Barbara Hyland, Monterey, CA
Accession Number: 2003.05

Exhibition


Your Mind, This Moment: Art and the Practice of Attention
, February 17, 2017 - August 17, 2017, Second Fl. North Gallery, San José Museum of Art.

Contemporary Art from the Permanent Collection, July 30, 2007 - September 9, 2007, San José Museum of Art.

Inside Out: Selections from the Permanent Collection, November 20, 2004 - July 9, 2006, New Wing, Second Floor, South Metro A and Central Skylight Galleries, San José Museum of Art.

It's About Time: Celebrating 35 Years
, October 3, 2004 - February 13, 2005, New Wing, Gibson Family Gallery and Plaza Gallery, First Floor, San José Museum of Art.

SJMA Label Text


Your Mind, This Moment: Art and the Practice of Attention (2017)

Jamie Brunson is a student of Kundalini meditation (a traditional Indian practice based on rhythmic and cyclical breathing). For her, painting serves as a meditative inquiry into the divine. An avid traveler, Brunson has photographed Mughal architecture in northern India and ornamental motifs in Morocco, fascinated by the incorporation of Arabic text in design. The title of her work makes a similar reference; in Arabic, sura is the term for a chapter of the Qu’ran. In Sura, Brunson evokes a hazy visualization one might have behind closed eyes. At once geometrically flat and subtly atmospheric, her pattern joins together in mesmerizing, organic clusters that may seem to contract and expand hypnotically. Her paintings are representations of the meditative experience of their making; the repeated actions of her gestures prove to be a test of physical endurance that she likens to a trancelike state. Brunson uses full-body brushstrokes as she layers the canvas first with oil paint and then with meticulous applications of transparent alkyd glaze, working quickly as it drips and dries.


It's About Time: Celebrating 35 Years
(2004-2005)

Brunson addresses both the spiritual implications of patterns and the role they play in cultural transmission. She cites her childhood years in Japan as formative, noting a “strong, definitive, nature-based aesthetic that infused daily life.” Today, an avid traveler in Europe and Asia, Brunson photographs the architectural details and ornamental motifs of the Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic religious monuments that she visits. The photographs later become source material for her pattern-based abstract paintings, which are delicately crafted with layer upon layer of oil paint and transparent alkyd glaze.

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Dimensions
  • Image Dimensions: 66 x 66 in. (167.64 x 167.64 cm)

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