“In a metropolis whose major postwar art style was everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Imagism (think Dr. Seuss on LSD), Ms. Bramson’s pictures are influenced by 18th-century French Rococo art and paintings of Chinese “pleasure gardens”; they contain … conceits about life, miniaturized worlds and fairy tales, and speak about longing, innuendo and clichés. Getting all of this into paintings of moderate size is a tall order, and to accomplish that with any sort of charm – the strong point of Ms. Bramson’s art – would seem even more difficult. Oddly, it’s a kind of crudity – a deliberately semiclumsy combining of Western realism, Asian fog and flatness, collage and occasional glitter – that does the trick. If Ms. Bramson’s paintings were any slicker, they wouldn’t look as heartfelt as they do.”
—Peter Plagens
