Bracha L. Ettinger: The Art of Healing Through Connection

Embracing Trauma, Memory, and the Feminine Gaze

Bracha L. Ettinger is an artist whose work moves beyond the boundaries of traditional painting. It is not just her methods but also her deep theoretical engagement with psychoanalysis, trauma, and the feminine that set her apart as a singular voice in contemporary art. Ettinger’s art embodies a space where trauma and beauty coexist, a space that she describes as the “matrixial”, a domain that challenges conventional ways of seeing and relating. Today, let's explore how Ettinger’s work offers us a way to navigate the complexities of memory, connection, and shared experience.

Bracha L. Ettinger - Untitled n. 3

The Matrixial Theory: A New Way of Relating

To understand Bracha L. Ettinger's art, one must first delve into her theoretical contributions, particularly her concept of the “matrixial borderspace.” Informed by her background in psychoanalysis, Ettinger developed this theory as an alternative to the Freudian and Lacanian ideas of subjectivity, which have often been centered on individuality and separation. Instead, the matrixial concept is about interconnectedness,about the relational spaces between people, where trauma, memory, and emotions are shared and transformed.

This idea of shared experience and interconnectedness is evident in her visual work. Her canvases are often layered with delicate, translucent colors, evoking a sense of emergence and becoming. The forms that appear are not clearly defined; they blend, overlap, and dissolve into each other, suggesting a permeability between the self and the other. This visual language creates a space where viewers can experience an empathetic connection, an invitation to engage not just with the work but with the emotions and experiences that it evokes.

Painting as Healing: The Aesthetic of Fragility

Ettinger's paintings are often described as “fragile,” and it is in this fragility that their power lies. Her use of light, transparent layers of paint creates an almost ethereal quality, where images seem to float between presence and absence. This aesthetic of fragility mirrors the nature of trauma itself, something that is there, yet elusive; something that can be touched upon but not fully grasped.

Her work is deeply influenced by her own family history, as well as the collective trauma of the Holocaust. Born in Tel Aviv in 1948 to parents who survived the Holocaust, Ettinger carries a generational memory of that trauma, and her art becomes a way of processing and transforming these inherited experiences. The act of painting, for Ettinger, is an act of healing, not just for herself, but for the viewer as well. Her work speaks to the possibility of transforming pain into something beautiful, of finding connection and empathy through the shared acknowledgment of suffering.

The Feminine Gaze: Challenging Conventional Representation

Bracha L. Ettinger’s work also challenges the traditional ways in which the feminine is represented in art. Historically, the female body has been depicted through the lens of the male gaze, often objectified or idealized. Ettinger offers an alternative, a “feminine gaze” that is not about objectification but about connection and transformation. Her works do not present the body as an object to be consumed; instead, they evoke the experience of embodiment, of being in a body that feels, remembers, and relates.

Bracha L. Ettinger - Eurydice N 45

Her series of works titled “Eurydice” exemplifies this approach. Drawing on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, Ettinger reimagines the story from the perspective of Eurydice, focusing on her experience of loss, longing, and transformation. In these works, Eurydice is not merely a passive figure waiting to be rescued; she is an active presence, a subject with her own story to tell. The blurred, overlapping forms in these paintings suggest the liminal space between life and death, presence and absence, a space that Ettinger invites us to inhabit and explore.

The Art of the In-Between: Memory, Trauma, and Transformation

Ettinger’s work is profoundly concerned with the in-between spaces—the spaces between self and other, between memory and forgetting, between trauma and healing. Her concept of the “matrixial gaze” is not about domination or control but about witnessing and sharing. It is about recognizing the other within oneself and understanding that our identities are formed not in isolation, but in relationship with others.

In her painting “Pieta,” for example, Ettinger draws on the traditional Christian motif of Mary holding the body of Christ. However, her version of the Pieta is not about suffering in isolation; it is about shared pain, about the way in which grief and love can connect us across time and space. The forms are indistinct, merging into one another, suggesting that the boundaries between self and other, between mother and child, are fluid and permeable. This permeability is at the heart of Ettinger’s work, an acknowledgment that we are all interconnected, that our pain and our joy are shared.

Bracha L. Ettinger’s Legacy: Art as a Space of Encounter

Bracha L. Ettinger’s art and theory offer a powerful challenge to the individualistic, often fragmented view of the self that dominates much of contemporary culture. Her work is a reminder that we are not isolated beings, but are deeply interconnected, that our experiences, our traumas, and our memories are shared. By creating art that inhabits the space of the in-between, Ettinger invites us to embrace the complexities of human relationships, to find beauty in fragility, and to recognize the power of empathy.

Ettinger’s legacy is one of connection, a call to see art as a space where healing can occur, where trauma can be transformed, and where we can encounter not just the other, but ourselves in a new way. In her matrixial spaces, we are invited to let go of rigid boundaries and to embrace the fluid, the uncertain, and the shared.