Joe Bradley

Born 1975 in Kittery, ME

Lives and works in New York

Joe Bradley has a diverse art practice deeply rooted in painting. His work defies easy categorization as he deftly moves across artistic movements and modes, weaving together personal and art historical references in his irreverent, self-assured style.

Bradley usually creates his improvisational, mixed-media canvases unprimed and unstretched on his studio floor, leading the finished paintings to bear the traces of the artistic process they underwent. Unconventional materials surface in the finished works, some even bearing seams where fragments of canvas have been stitched together in a collage-like manner. Figuration features to varying degrees across Bradley‘s oeuvre, employing both geometric and organic forms, sometimes iconography, while other times engaging in a more minimalist painting tradition with monochrome swaths of color. Swaying always between earnestness and irony in his expression, Bradley continually provides a unique take on abstract painting and Western artistic traditions.

Joe Bradley‘s work has been shown at various institutions worldwide, incuding Albright Knox Art Gallery, Bufalo, NY; Kunstmuseum Bonn; Bozar / Center of Fine Arts, Brussels; Whitney Museum of American Art (2008 Whitney Biennal); Le Consortium, Dijon; WMuseum of Modern Art; New York; MoMA PS1, Long Island, NY, among others. Bradley‘s work can be found in the collections of the The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; The Pinault Collection, Paris / Venice; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Sammlung Ringier, Switzerland; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Bufalo, NY; Aïshti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon; Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT; The Luma Foundation, Zurich / Arles; Rosa de la Cruz Collection, Miami, FL, among others.