Dorothy Braudy

Dorothy (McGahee) Braudy is an artist based in Los Angeles.A graduate of the University of Kentucky, she received a M.F.A. from New York University and taught for many years at Pratt Institute, the University of Maryland, and Goucher College.Her work, which includes painting, photography, and printmaking, has been shown in New York, Washington, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, and is included in many private and public collections.

Dorothy Braudy was born in Los Angeles, California and raised in Maysville, Kentucky. She is married to film critic and historian, Leo Braudy. They live and work in Los Angeles, California.

Highlights

Dorothy Braudy's artwork explores various styles and media with an emphasis on figures and their relation to color and environment.

Her collections '"Signs of Rescue'" (1988) and "Animal Rites" (1994) feature the animal figure and their interactions with not only the human figures in the paintings, but also the engagement of the viewer. In "Animal Rites" shown at Take 2 (a collaborative exhibit between USC's Fisher Gallery and the California African American Museum) visitors peered into the world of zoo animals using a magnifying glass to view their photographs on display.

The human figure and experience is brought to the forefront in "Marking Time" (1995), a biographical snapshot of the artist's life through the recreation of old photographs with oil on canvas paintings. Braudy showed and presented her work on the cross-section between memory and art at Northeastern University's series The Arts of Being: Telling Life Stories Now in 2010.

Dorothy Braudy's photograph series "Sacred L.A" (1995-1997) focuses its lens on the religious aspects of the metropolis that is Los Angeles. The series was featured in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion in 2013.

Shows

• 2010: “Marking Time,” Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
• 2007: “Double Feature,” Hamilton Galleries, Santa Monica, California
• 2005: “Marking Time,” Hamilton Galleries, Santa Monica, California
• 2000: “Finishing the Hat,” Ellen Kim Murphy Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica
• 1994: “Animal Rites,” Fisher Museum, University of Southern California, Los Angeles (LAX/94 city-wide biennial show)
• 1991: 871 Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco. Private View, Los Angeles.
• 1988: Orlando Gallery, Sherman Oaks, California.
• 1986: Orlando Gallery, Sherman Oaks, California. UPB Gallery, Berkeley, California.
• 1985: Clark County Community College, Las Vegas, Nevada.
• 1984: Easton Academy of the Arts, Easton, Maryland. UPB Gallery, Berkeley, California.
• 1982: Mason County Museum, Maysville, Kentucky. Kraushaar Gallery, Goucher College, Baltimore.
• 1981: B.R.Kornblatt Gallery, Washington, D.C.
• 1979: B.R.Kornblatt Gallery, Baltimore.
• 1978: Hogan & Hartson, Washington, D.C. (prints and drawings). Viridian Gallery, New York.
• 1977: Viridian Gallery, New York.
• 1976: Columbia University, Graduate School Gallery.
• 1975: Second Story Spring Street Society, Soho, New York.

Artist Statement

"When I started painting in the 1950s, the rule of the land was abstract expressionism. Representational painting of any sort was considered to be a denial of the high calling of the artist. But somehow figures kept creeping into my work and, when I saw a show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959, featuring the work of Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, and others, I felt even more authorized to find my own way between the figures of representation and the colors, shapes, and patterns of abstraction. Throughout my career I have been interested in capturing fleeting images and aspects of color, light, and shadow as they play across shapes and figures. I like to take something transient—a time of day, a momentary glimpse, a relation between two people—freeze it, and give that experience a resonance and a permanence through the resources available to me in art. In my work, I use a variety of materials and work in different media, but my goal has always been consistently to capture the beauty of everyday color and light. As Stephen Sondheim has written, 'Color and light, there is only color and light.' "