John Bradford at Anna Zorina Gallery in New York City
"Hamilton, History, Lincoln and Paint", is John Bradford’s first solo exhibition at the Anna Zorina Gallery. The show features the artist’s latest paintings that offer his contemporary take on historical subjects.
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
John Bradford:
"I am employing violent scraping, palette knifing, dabbing, dripping, reducing, tearing apart, cutting through, and building up so the paint overwhelms with something very specific, yet distantly remembered from somewhere else. This process of abstracting and excavating these oft–told American histories simultaneously asserts my formal, absolute control of the surface while allowing me to retreat from the field".
John Bradford "Constitutional Convention" 60x78 acrylic and oil on canvas, 2018
This unbridled exploration can be seen in Publication of the Declaration and Abraham Speaking to the People at Gettysburg with their highly original use of Jean Paul Riopelle-like textured fields of paint deftly applied in a specific narrative context as means of capturing the deeply complex, often conflicting interactions in the psychology of a crowd. The sheer plasticity and expressionist aggression of Bradford’s negative spaces create “significant narrative gestures” throughout the pictorial surface to celebrate something entirely new: field painting of history.
John-Bradford "Lincoln Addressing the People at Gettysburg" 48x60 acrylic and oil on canvas, 2017
The repertoire of techniques employed in these various historical paintings encompasses virtually the entire modernist lexicon and testifies to a painting life of unrelenting experimentation and invention. The magic is that a wide range of subjects, treated in surprisingly different ways, is so clearly the vision of a singular sensibility still committed to finding relevancy in our so tenuously shared national narrative.
John Bradford "Lincoln Writing the Emancipation Proclamation" 48x60 acrylic and oil on canvas, 2017
ABOUT THE ARTIST
JOHN BRADFORD (b. 1949, Wilmington, Delaware) received his BFA from Cooper Union in 1971 and MFA from Yale University School of Art in 1979. He is the 2011 recipient of prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Painting. John Bradford’s work has been reviewed in the New York Times, ArtNews, Village Voice, the Jewish Press and Hudson Review.
"Hamilton, History, Lincoln and Paint"
March 29 - May 5, 2018
Anna Zorina Gallery
New York City, NY
FRAMING SPECIFICATIONS
John Bradford "Publication of the Declaration" 48x60 acrylic and oil on canvas, 2017
METRO FLOATING FRAME
Profile: 120, 124, 121
Type: Floating frame
Wood & Finish: Unfinished maple
Purchase Option: Unjoined wood frame cut to size with wedges
Framing Advice: joining frames
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