Amy Bravo

Amy Bravo is a Cuban/Italian American painter, born 1997 in New Jersey and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She received her BFA in Illustration at Pratt Institute in 2019, and currently is working towards her MFA at Hunter College. Bravo has recently come to fine-arts painting, completing her first large-scale work on canvas in 2018. Bravo is an artist interested in the shared language of culture and family, be it a found, queer family, or blood relatives. Her work is an attempt to understand and reflect the existence of a queer Cuban person who has neither a found family, nor many living blood relatives of Cuban descent left. Challenged with the complications of Cuban politics (particularly in regards to homosexuality), Bravo's large-scale paintings seek to create an impossible utopia in the vague outline of Cuba, with the impossibility being the most crucial element. This utopian desire hinges on the question of what it means to love someone or somewhere you do not always agree with. What does it mean to love unconditionally? What toll does it take? Who picks up the pieces?

Amy Bravo, Queens of Morro Castle, 2019. Acrylic, graphite and pastel on canvas, 75 x 90 in. Courtesy of the artist.

Amy Bravo, Ritmo de Luna, 2018. Acrylic, collage and oil pastel on wood panel, 16 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist.