I want to know what nurtures me.
Colonization and imperialism cost us. We are intimately familiar with what harms; we have lost connection with what nurtures—the magical balance where tradition meets the land. My work builds my belonging as the descendent of the colonizer, as one with a handful of brown ancestors, and as a woman under patriarchy.
Watercolor, acrylics, and ink capture the value of native species and women, highlighted with metallic ink and bas-relief on cotton paper or imperfectly handmade wood panels. Serious subject meets whimsy to rebel through irreverent joy and creates imagery worthy of collective memory—truths to displace the lies.
As I decolonize my wild mind and internalize true beauty, I question what we value versus what we should. I critique roles women have been allowed. I seek to create symbols that honor our now complex understanding of humanity.
Brianna Sinder is an irreverent ecofeminist painter seeking to internalize precontact beauty to displace the lies of colonialism. She mourns the disconnection to her heritage and the toll of misogyny on the women in her bloodline. Throughout life, she sensed the pressure to aspire to have something else, something that wasn’t there. And it disgusted her.
She has embraced her art now as a record of her unlearning as she untangles native species, women’s history, matriarchy and symbology from the mono-aesthetic we were forced into.
She is a proud member of Art for Our Parks and has sold a mini piece in the 4x4 Art Show at Reno Fine Arts. She melds unloved native species with rebellious takes on women’s stories to create a world that should exist beyond the confines of her mind. She refuses to paint non-native species except as an identifier for the colonizer.
Her work is made with watercolors, ink and gouache on cotton paper in large scale. She uses india ink to capture the storminess of climate change, and irridescent metallic ink to reflect societal values related to money and precious metals.