At the age of 30, Brandi began her visual art education with private lessons under a traditional Chinese landscape painter in Wudangshan, China. Her instructor, Bi Laoshi taught her traditional brush and ink techniques but he also taught her to closely observe nature and connect deeply with it.
Her work is primarily landscapes or objects found in nature. The natural world provides information and inspiration, fostering the state of mind necessary for her art-making process. The materials she uses are so flowing and unpredictable that they require restraint coupled with spontaneity and acceptance. Brandi is influenced by daoist philosophy and chinese landscapes as well as asian ceramics, folk art, and design as well as the comics and cartoons she grew up with as a child of the 80’s and 90’s.
Her work explores themes of spontaneity, discovery, and connection with the natural world, marrying traditional ink and brush with monotype printmaking. Combining these techniques provides that sense of spontaneity and lightheartedness with the more serene aspects. She starts with monotype, which creates an abstraction which she then pulls her image from. Brandi’s process is to let the Dao do what it will in the printing stage, leaving plenty of room for surprises, then look hard at the marks on the paper to see what’s there, to make order from the chaos.
