GWU visiting artist Audrey Flack, who has said that “Holly Trostle Brigham is one of the most interesting young painters working today.
[5][6] The tremendous level of detail and iconography in her work invites the viewer to read her paintings as biography and autobiography intertwined: Brigham’s body performs the life of an historical figure while in turn, the choice and iconography of the figure reveal the events and concerns of Brigham’s own life, creating a “conflation of her self-image with their identities”.
[7] Brigham has stated that she often thinks of her work as “art history in reverse”: she began her education decoding the symbols and signifiers in the artwork of others, and now as an artist, she is encoding the emblems of her subjects.
Brigham has collaborated with the renowned poet Marilyn Nelson on a project called Sacred Sisters that resulted in an exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, and Penn State Lehigh Valley, as well as in an artist book.
This book was the catalyst for the exhibition ’I Wake Again’: Holly Trostle Brigham on Elizabeth Siddal at the Delaware Art Museum in spring 2022.