Biography
Sadee Brathwaite, founder of La Leona Arts – an arts organization dedicated to promoting and supporting the arts through various art initiatives, is an artist, curator and arts advocate. Her drawings and paintings explore issues of beauty, universal womanhood and the metaphysical. Often combining realistic representation with abstract imagery her work dwells in many realms.

Brathwaite was born in Barbados and moved to New York in the late 1980s. She studied art history at Kingston University in London, 2003, and holds a BFA in Painting/ Drawing from the State University of New York at New Paltz, 2004. Brathwaite has worked in the Hudson Valley at art institutions such as Dia: Beacon and the Deep Listening Institute. As an independent curator, Brathwaite works with a variety of galleries and art spaces to exhibit art that reflects our diverse cultures. Her curated shows include a four year traveling cultural series in the Hudson Valley, Woman Scorned at Varga Gallery, Woodstock, NY and African Inspirations at Arts Society of Kingston, Kingston, NY.

In 2008, Brathwaite was a guest on Toni Quest’s Screaming Woman Talks for PIVR and appeared three times on Christina Varga’s Apocalypse Varga. She was also featured on the May 2008 cover of Art Works. Her art has been exhibited in galleries throughout the Hudson Valley, Metropolitan New York and New Jersey.

As a consultant, Brathwaite works with artists in different stages of their careers to help them get organized, motivated and functioning efficiently in their artistic endeavors. She offers support to women artists through community in the form of La Leona Women Painters’ Guild. She continually advocates and appreciates the importance of diversity in the visual arts.