The Mixed Media Artist Inside America’s Most High-Profile Courtrooms
"I think that we're a country that doesn't actually know what its values are, so we get really swept up in big things," Isabelle Brourman, who sketched Trump's trial and Luigi Mangione's pre-trial hearing, told Jezebel.
Photo: Getty Images In DepthLatestPolitics
If you were to believe mainstream media’s descriptions of the crowds attending the Luigi Mangione proceedings, they’re “goo-goo-eyed groupies” and “female fans“—people with, well, a “crush” on the 26-year-old accused of killing Brian Thompson, the former CEO of United Healthcare. Between the gratuitous photo-ops and the unsubstantiated rumors of sex tapes, it’s easy to write that Mangione has become something of a pin-up since his December 2024 arrest. Isabelle “Izzy” Brourman, an American mixed media artist who sketched the courtroom at Mangione’s recent hearing, has a few more thoughts.
Brourman got her start covering high-profile—and polarizing—trials by sneaking into the Depp vs. Heard proceedings in 2022. Then, after persuading court officials to let her into Trump’s hush money trial in 2024, she yielded an onslaught of attention, thanks to Rolling Stone, senior art critic and New York magazine columnist Jerry Saltz, and a Trump portrait. Brourman’s style has been described as “lawless” “a palimpsest of truth, documentation and interpretation” and, in Trump’s words, “genius.” And her subjects are men with ardent—in many cases, obsessed—supporters.
The way she sees it, her work transcends sketching the courtroom and takes a psychological account of what’s happening outside. In talking to spectators—who are very notably not just women—Brourman says she’s gleaned a few things. Mangione, she thinks, has all the makings of a folk hero; an American revolutionary for the TikTok age.
“I think that we’re a country that doesn’t actually know what its values are, so we get really swept up in big things,” Brourman told Jezebel. As for Mangione’s role in it? “He’s providing this option of what the American identity could be or what people could stand for. And he’s definitely testing the limits.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Jezebel: So, let’s get into the operational stuff first. When you’re sketching in the courtroom, do you hear and metabolize what’s being said? Or are you too locked into what your subject (in this case, Luigi) is doing?
Izzy: I started making art in high school because I was really distractible and had a hard time paying attention. Drawing is a way to ground me and actually, I’m paying close attention. A lot of the time, I’m pulling the language, reacting to it, and, sort of, moving my pen and starting a new composition based on things like, if the judge interjects. He was very agitated in the hearing, so I started to pay attention to him.
I incorporate a lot of text into the work because I think it keeps it grounded in the story of the day. When his attorney called him a “model prisoner,” I was like, “Oh, that’s kind of funny because there’s multiple ways that you can interpret the phrase.” I’m looking at one of the drawings now and I did a zoomed-in shot of his feet, his loafers, and the shackled bare ankles. There’s a really interesting tension happening with beauty and the punitive cloud. When they’re hanging the death penalty over your head, you have no choice but to consent, then you have this…how do I describe it? He’s definitely the most handsome subject I’ve had…
I mean, yeah. Luigi’s handsomeness is undeniable, but your previous subjects have included Trump and Johnny Depp, so, the bar has been set pretty low. Your style is obviously more abstract and less literal than the average court artist. How do personally you define it?
There’s a style that happens in every trial that’s specific to that trial. I really respect the traditional sketch artists because first of all, they’ve allowed me to carve out my own sort of meaning in what I’m doing, but they’re also the reason that I get to sit where I sit because they’ve held that down. The traditional sketch artists are there to take a moment from that trial and to substitute it for photography in a lot of ways—to show people what his expressions were. It’s direct, it’s literal, it’s cinematic. What I’m doing is…I’m not just inside the courtroom. I’m also outside the courtroom; I’m considering the culture and the moment we’re in. I’m also considering—and I’m excited to go down this rabbit hole—this is the same courtroom that Trump’s criminal trial was in. One of the officers said to me, “It feels like a twilight zone.” It’s not traumatic, but it’s a memory that does not go away. It’s indelible. It might form in the same space that trauma forms in the brain.
With this trial, I’m just kind of at this point where I’m listening to and studying what instincts I have with the mediums I want to use. I write those kinds of decisions down because it’s like, “OK, why am I tearing away a layer of paper on his face?” or “Why am I going to my studio and painting an oil painting on canvas?” How can I understand that from a philosophical point of view?
I know it’s still early, but have you made sense of those decisions yet?
I haven’t had a moment to fully think about it but the initial impression is that he’s provided—for me, in the history that I’m documenting—an interesting counterpoint that’s made the national story more mythological than it already was. America is in such a place that it seems to be needing leaders and heroes and a miracle. I saw that a lot while on the road and in and out of the Trump trials. A lot of people were looking for quick answers.
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Speaking of the Trump proceedings, I think it’s safe to say that the takeaway was that there are some people (wealthy, white, male) in this country who will always be above the law. What do you see as the takeaway from the Mangione proceedings so far?
Luigi represents a release from a lot of pain. The demographic of people present was a lot of young women, but there were also activists and older folks. I think this is a class issue versus a political issue. To go from the election, where things were so highly politicized, there’s something more subterranean to those allegiances. There’s hope that this is a reckoning, and hope is a very powerful thing in this culture. I think what Luigi represents to a lot of people who showed up across all backgrounds is the possibility that there is individual power and that the people could take steps and change things. That’s the story that he’s narrating and that the public is maybe latching on to and hungry for…some personal power. There were a lot of people who needed to hear the call from what I gathered outside. It’s kind of like when somebody’s been bullied in isolation, there’s a moment where they find a community who’s standing up for the same things. It’s kind of cool to see how power can be reverse-engineered in that way, and that’s not to minimize the allegations of violence and the seriously complicated ethical debates that are taking place.
I’m not in the business of predictions, but it does feel like there’s a hope that something could change and people want to show up and support the possibility of a different future than what they’re currently dealing with now. What I got from the people who were screaming, shouting, and giving their time to be there is that they don’t have any other options. They’ve dealt with a system that hasn’t funded life-saving procedures.
It seems America’s desire for some sort of paternal hero is on full display in both Trump’s and Luigi’s cases. Before talking to you, I don’t know if I would’ve drawn that parallel.
I think—traditionally—in our patriarchal society, we expect that the father will take care of things. That hits home in a really deep way for people who are completely disenfranchised and like, “I just can’t figure this out. Can somebody just do this for me?” He [Trump] tapped into that—especially after he got shot. It was like, “he’s still here!” It’s just like we’re in mythical times. I think I’m probably going deep into myth for this [the Mangione case] now, and not just because of him but because of the counterweight that he is to the Trump effect. Luigi is a revolutionary archetype. That’s what people hope for in the crowd…that he’s a revolutionary. He’s not a person anymore. He’s an idol in this cultural context. This is something we haven’t seen before. We have never seen a TikTok folk hero. How will that play out? And how will we understand him, given the mediums that we consume him in? Also, he hasn’t even said a word. We’ve only ever seen his attorney speak and we’ve heard not guilty. Who is he to everyone, despite what we’ve actually seen? That’s a really interesting territory for me as an artist.
It’s just so American. Luigi seems like he’s sort of helping to provide this option of what the American identity could be or what people could stand for. And he’s definitely testing the limits. Everybody’s going to go on a journey with this case and ask those questions and see how much these things actually permeate into systematic changes and how many of those things are just cautionary adjustments. Is this an escape? Or is this an actual shift?
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And what would this be if Luigi weren’t beautiful?
It would still be a story, but it would be a different one. I’m not sure as many people would be as well-behaved. There’s a lot of femmes in the space that…want to marry him. Like, actually. They’re courting someone in court. And there’s a lot of fantasy that comes with that. As this thing progresses, there will be structures within the fanbase. Some people will get more respect than others in the fandom. Every day in the Depp trial, there were fans and then there were super fans. There’s a whole world that happens of a high profile trial under the court’s nose in regard to the fans. It’s clear that this is going to be a world unto its own. I love to observe, but I think that making conclusions limits you from seeing the entire picture.