Valerie Brathwaite, the Trinidadian artist whose colourful sculpture reflected on organic and biomorphic form, has died.
Long a resident in Venezuela, the artist looked to the landscape, stones, flowers, fauna and so-called ‘soft bodies’ of the Caribbean for inspiration.
Brathwaite changed materials roughly every decade from the time she moved to Caracas in 1969: making drawings and sculpture in water-based clay and plaster in the 1970s; collages and prints in the 1980s; ceramic and fabric work from the 1990s; concrete pieces created from 2004 onward; and most recently turned to MDF reliefs. Throughout, however, the natural world was made strange, full of Pop colours and undulating forms: the fabric works were full of layered textile detailing, suggestive of some mystical purpose.
‘I don’t intend to have any direct philosophy to explain my drawings and sculptures, nor am I committed to any specific artistic movement. But there are organic and sensual reminiscences in my works, which, I imagine, originate from my fascination with the overwhelming beauty of mountains, rocks, stones, exotic plants, women’s breasts and legs, male torsos, sunsets, and the marvellous bodies of animals,’ she said in a 1972 interview.
Brathwaite studied Interior Design and Art at Hornsey College of Art and the Royal College of Art in London – where she was taught by artist Hubert Dallwood – and at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, between 1959 and 1964; moving to Venezuela on the encouragement of the artist Gego.
She had her first solo exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas in 1975. In 2025, she was the subject of a retrospective at Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires and her work was featured at the 14th Mercosur Biennial, held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
