BIO & BACKGROUND

Spain-Bio-pic-600

For the past 40 years, Terry Braunstein’s world of montage has been a discovery of deep truths hidden behind layers of seemingly disparate images—both ancient and modern. Braunstein is a philosopher as well as an artist — her creative weave of archetypes and ancient myths coupled with modern images found in the contemporary magazine sitting on our living room coffee table, gives us profound insight. The juxtaposition is often surprising and even humorous, reflecting how our own private, mundane world is actually connected to all of humanity, and how our life passages and experiences reflect universal themes.

Terry Braunstein has not only created art that connects diverse concepts and images, but it has evolved and expressed itself through incredibly diverse media. Where most artists work with perhaps one, two or even three media, her work has evolved through photography, painting, mosaic, printmaking, stone, steel, brass, and even video. She has been creating books (both published as well as sculpted), installations in museums and on the street — photographs, sculpture, and large permanent public art.

Terry Braunstein has exhibited her work in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Gallery Miyazaki in Japan the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Sala Arcs gallery in Barcelona, Spain.  She had one person shows at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica in 1992, 1994, 1997 and 2009, and at the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1992 and 2015-16; the Fendrick Gallery and Washington Project for the Arts in Washington D.C.; Marcuse Pfeifer Gallery and Franklin Furnace in New York, and many others around the world.

Braunstein was invited to Andalucia, Spain as part of “Imagina”—a series of one-person exhibitions of photographers from around the world–and commissioned to create a photographic response to this area of Spain for the Universal Exposition in Seville in 1992.

Her work is in numerous public and private collections, including the Getty Center for the Arts and Humanities, the National Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Library of Congress, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Long Beach Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y.

In 1985, Braunstein was awarded a Visual Artist Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2018, Braunstein was awarded a COLA (City of Los Angeles) Master Arts Fellowship. In 1999, and again in 2012, she was awarded fellowships by the City of Long Beach.  She was the recipient of an Open Channels video grant from the Long Beach Museum of Art in 1992, and was the recipient of the National Book Award of the Library Fellows of the National Museum of Women in the Arts for 1994.  She was invited to artist’s residencies at Yaddo in 1997, 1999, 2003, and 2005.

As Braunstein became increasingly interested in expanding the audience for her work, she turned toward public art.  In 1992, she was awarded a commission to produce public art for a Los Angeles Metro-Rail Blue Line station and in 1998, she was commissioned to create two photo-installations for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Windows on Wilshire” series, curated by Howard Fox.  In September 1999, Braunstein was awarded a commission to create a memorial to the Navy presence in Long Beach; porcelain panels for the elevators of L.B. City Hall; and a 50th Anniversary sculpture for the City of Cerritos.  In 2007 she completed mosaics and colored windows for the Sun Valley Health Center through the LA County Arts Commission, and in 2010 completed projects for the L.B. Transit at 6 different bus stations, art enhancements for the Rosie the Riveter Park, and a North Long Beach Entryway mosaic for the Redevelopment Agency of Long Beach.  In 2013, she collaborated with choreographer Cyrus Parker-Jeannette and animator David Familian to create an installation-sculpture for a dance performance that was part of an NEA-funded project to bring art to underserved communities.

Terry Braunstein was born in Washington, D.C. and received her BFA from the University of Michigan and her MFA from the Maryland Institute of Art.  She taught as professor at the Corcoran School of Art for 15 years.

Terry Braunstein currently resides and creates art in Long Beach, California.

“She Collage” by Kate Lain produced for the exhibition “Who is She? Terry Braunstein” commissioned by the Long Beach Museum of Art.