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Opening Reception: April 19, 2012
The Edward Thorp Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibit of recent works by
Katherine Bradford. The show will consist of approximately twenty large- to small-scale
paintings, and gouache works on paper.
The recurring themes in these new works are Superman and Ocean Liners. These
icons of strength are re-evaluated, and rendered vulnerable. Oscillating between the
playful and the serious, the fictive and the real, these enigmatic works often evoke an
ominous, disconcerting sensation.
The Superman figure is depicted as engaging in various activities: leaping into action as
he leaves a jet stream abstraction in his wake, or relaxing on a deck chair in a seemingly
Superman-styled park. Bradford’s new works portray a poignant image of this
quintessential figure, which is seen more flailing than flying (perhaps due to the weight
of his burden--or inertia). Breaking the stereotype of the impregnable hero, the artist
redefines the traditional notions of strength. This symbolic image also provides formal
possibilities such as signature color statements and the potential of movement and
transcendence.
In Bradford's recent ship images vessels continue to evolve towards an
abstracted emblematic vision with the ocean becoming a pictorial and graphic event,
figures in suits flee an ocean liner stricken by a lighting-bolt shaped iceberg, advancing
in bright red triangular shapes on an agitated sea of blue. States of synthesis or conflict
are formulated, as towering forms hover in color fields of luminous, pigmented surfaces,
their stark geometry juxtaposed with atmospheric color.
Superman and Ocean Liner subjects become vehicles by which Bradford expresses the
power of the latent poetic imagination and the direct pleasures inherent in the painting
process. Here she finds her own narrative within the subtlety of found forms amidst
mysterious spaces and events.
The artist is a resident of New York and Maine. This will be her second solo
exhibit with the Edward Thorp Gallery. She has works in various public collections
including The Brooklyn Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Portland
Museum, Addison Gallery of America Art and Worcester Museum.
Gallery hours are from 11am to 6pm, Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information or visuals, please call (212) 691-6565 or email: edwardthorpgallery@gmail.com
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