Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise: Kara Braciale

Learn more about the artists in Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise: The Phillips Collection Juried Exhibition (on view August 1-September 20, 2026).

Tell us about your work in Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise. 

Planchette is a cyanotype from an ongoing series called Pillow Book in which I log my surroundings as photographic impressions. This particular work captures my use of a piece of crochet lace as a planchette for divination and interface with its unknown maker. I simultaneously made a cyanotype on the piece of lace that I was using as the planchette. These works employ the process of cyanotype to create images that are immediate physical impressions linked to a specific date, time of day, and atmospheric condition. In their creation, I sometimes employ rituals and actions related to divination, spiritualism, and meditation to invite chance and the felt unknown into the work.

The title of the series is taken from the eponymous first-century text by Japanese female writer Sei Shōnagon in which she records everyday observations of her life in the imperial court. The book is characterized as an example of “mono no aware,” which can be translated to “the pathos of things” or the acute feeling of beauty coupled with awareness of its transience. In this series, I fix transient moments of my attempts to access a seam of transcendence. 

Tell us about your artistic process. 

I work loosely and simultaneously in a number of ways. I often have longer, more process-based works happening that I can walk away from and come back to easily, such as weavings. These leave room for improvisation and discovery within the initial framework I have given myself. I also make works that have a more defined project-based approach that require technical problem-solving at given moments. I like watercolor for sketching ideas. And more recently, cyanotype for images that start out as a brush of cyanotype chemicals on a substrate. My work is also informed by what I am teaching at the time: it’s hard not to be inspired to draw when I am teaching drawing or paint when I’m teaching painting. 

What themes are central to your artistic process?

Time and my experience of it is something that is always in the background of what I am doing and making. Even when I believe I have a clear concept or process at the outset, I can often realize later that time and accretion are embedded in the work. Labor and value, which is of course also related to time and how it is spent, are also preoccupations of mine. I love pictorial and perspectival shifts: either formal or conceptual. Trompe l’oeil and the grid are also formal strategies that I loop around to often. I relate all of this to time as something maybe outside of my ability to perceive it properly or accurately. 

How has living in the DMV area impacted and influenced your artistic journey? 

I’m embarrassed to admit that before I lived in the DMV, I did not really have an understanding of the federal government as being constituted by people. It’s the most obvious thing in the world, of course. It was very easy for me to think of the federal government as an inchoate singular authority or an automated factory or a machine and not as a bunch of people. It has been inspiring and humbling to live in this community with federal workers who dedicate their intelligence and energy and labor to contribute to the lives of others. 

What does it mean to you to be part of this exhibition? 

It’s thrilling to be included in an exhibition at the Phillips! I’ve seen so many works here that I was excited to get to see in person, and so many beautiful exhibitions that left me with much to consider. I am honored to have a work of mine hang here!