by
Joe Bradley
by Joe Bradley
2017
Joe Bradley, widely known for his powerful abstract paintings and spontaneous drawings, has distinguished himself among the artists of his generation with his mutable approach to artmaking. With minimal fuss, Bradley (American, born 1975) works in series, pivoting between abstraction and figuration, the earnest and the comic. Organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Joe Bradley, the artist’s first large-scale North American exhibition, shows him moving from subtly figurative modular color field paintings to grease-pencil drawings on canvas, then to densely layered expressionistic abstract canvases that record the detritus and spontaneity of the studio environment and silkscreen paintings based on the found images—from underground comics to outdated periodicals—that so often inspire his work. These paintings are joined by dozens of quickly sketched and immediately engaging drawings and a group of figurative and abstract sculptures. With reproductions of nearly 100 paintings, sculptures, and drawings, as well as an introduction by exhibition organizer Cathleen Chaffee, new scholarly essays by Kim Conaty and Dan Nadel, an interview with Bradley by the artist Carroll Dunham, and an exhibition history, this richly illustrated catalogue presents the full range of Bradley’s unique take on abstraction and the evolutions of style.