Gimme Some Sugar

The astonishing debut monograph from contemporary abstract expressionist painter Genesis Tramaine

Gimme Some Sugar is the much-anticipated first monograph from Genesis Tramaine, the renowned American artist whose star continues to rise in the international art world. Rooted in her 1980s New York City upbringing and strong spirituality, Tramaine imbues her abstract portraits of men and women with a transcendent emotion, devotion, and soundless musicality, borne from rhythmic brushstrokes and a visceral use of chromatic color. In her gestural style, she seeks, at once, to represent and universalize the humanness of the American Black face by obscuring the specificity of individual features, choosing instead to portray the inner turmoil and inner joy of one’s mind and being.

The book presents over 125 vibrant, full-color images of the artist’s dynamic and enthralling portrait paintings, which are an inextricable homage to her deep faith, sense of self, and her Sunday mornings at church. Bound in a rich and tactile faux-leather indigo case intended to evoke a modern Bible, Gimme Some Sugar also features a mini-sketchbook insert whose pages reveal the raw, instinctive line drawing studies for Tramaine’s large-scale masterwork paintings.

Genesis Tramaine was born in Brooklyn, New York, and earned her MS from Pace University and BS from Utica College of Syracuse University. She has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by Almine Rech Gallery.

Miciah Hussey is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in the intersection of art history and literature.

Alexandra M. Thomas is a scholar and writer with a PhD from Yale University in the History of Art and African American Studies.