This painting is brandee’s response to the question “What is Woman?” The question is complicated, but brandee has always fallen for a good question, especially one that makes her question parts of her existence.

The background of the painting fades from a light pink, through a soft yellow, to the sage green.The whole picture is meant to illustrate the pull between extremes. On the right, structure. The branches offer stability, something to follow. On the left, the unknown and undefined. Caught between is the figure, seeking for a way out.

“One is not born, but rather becomes, woman.” Simone de Beauvoir wrote that in The Second Sex. An existentialist definition brandee has always enjoyed. She placed Beauvoir’s words next to a representation of a platonic ideal: a ladder. Two extreme views in creating an identity. Are you radically free to choose who and what you are? Or are you seeking to progressively become closer to some godly ideal? This painting argues both. And neither.

And among the clouds we read the question, “Ain’t I a Woman?” brandee’s inspiration came from the bell hooks book of the same name. Although, bell hooks is already referencing the speech by Sojourner Truth. To brandee, the complicated nature of the reference seemed to echo the complicated category of “woman”