About
Holly Trostle Brigham is a Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts-trained figurative painter who creates mythical allegories of contemporary historical subjects. Her paintings are included in prestigious public collection like the National Portrait Gallery in D.C., the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Corcoran Collection in D.C., Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania State University, and Allentown Art Museum.
Through self-portraits, Holly Trostle Brigham calls attention to the challenges women artists have faced through history, illuminating the legacies of strong women of the past by blending them with her own identity and personal experiences of what it is like to be a woman and an artist today.
“Brigham inspires the viewer to consider the question of self-hood and legacy more broadly and underscores the important role of “sisterhood” to the advancement of humankind,” said Shelley R. Langdale The Park Family Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art, who wrote the forward to the exhibition’s catalog.
Brigham’s “subjects” range from the mythical figures of Cybele and Isis (the Roman goddess of fertility and Egyptian goddess of regeneration), to historical individuals, including ground-breaking fine artists such as Edmonia Lewis and Frida Kahlo, pioneering members of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), as well as lesser known women who were social, religious, and literary leaders of their day.
