Katherine Bradford

Katherine Bradford was born in New York, 1942. she lives and works in New York. Bradford’s mesmerizing yet rigorous visual language freely traverses the relationship between nonobjective and representational painting, allowing potential narratives to unfold and interweave with the investigation of form and color. Vast expanses of color divide her canvases into distinct horizontal planes while the variations in saturation and tone evoke an elusive yet almost palpable atmosphere. Lighter and darker hues are interchangeable and used without functional or hierarchical distinction, introducing spatial elements such as the sea and the sky, beaches and poolsides. These monochromatic backgrounds are occupied by human figures, often swimmers and bathers, whose androgynous, featureless bodies are roughly sketched. Driven by an unbiased curiosity, the artist allows her imagery to acquire a porous malleability where a pictorial sign becomes a signifier. Bradford’s practice has honed over four decades, maturing into a nonacademic, creative freedom that resonates deeply with the aesthetical and socio-political concerns of our time. It is her commitment to dynamic change and to the fluid state of human togetherness that Bradford so poignantly expresses in her radiant liquid fields.