Encompassing painting, collage, sculpture, film and audio performance, Bradford's practice examines the ever-changing conditions and spontaneous networks that characterise urban societies, and in particular that of his home city, Los Angeles. Bradford's large-scale, multi-layered collaged paintings incorporate materials such as remnants of billboard posters, magazines and newsprint found in the vicinity of his studio. These materials, which he describes as having 'an inbuilt history' are used to create dense, visually complex co... Read more

Encompassing painting, collage, sculpture, film and audio performance, Bradford’s practice examines the ever-changing conditions and spontaneous networks that characterise urban societies, and in particular that of his home city, Los Angeles.

Bradford’s large-scale, multi-layered collaged paintings incorporate materials such as remnants of billboard posters, magazines and newsprint found in the vicinity of his studio. These materials, which he describes as having ‘an inbuilt history’ are used to create dense, visually complex compositions that are ostensibly abstract but referential in content. At first glance, the work brings to mind ‘Affichiste’ artists such as Raymond Hains and Jacques Villeglé; yet Bradford is less concerned with a commentary on consumerism than with the specific context that shapes communities. This is most clearly identified in the works featuring what he calls ‘merchant posters’ found in his immediate neighbourhood. Affixed to cyclone fencing, which was erected around buildings left derelict after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, these billposters advertise services targeted directly at local inhabitants. In ‘May Heaven Preserve You From Dangers and Assassins’, posters selling pest control services form the basis for the painting, while in ‘When It Stops Snowing’, the placards advertise the facility to “receive calls on your cell phone from jail”. The underlying statements within these works begin to build a narrative of despondency and dislocation, which he has observed ‘is the invisible underbelly of a community’. On a formal level, the messages become more subliminal within the densely textured structure of the paintings. The lettering, outlined in cord, is entirely obliterated with collaged paper, and then sanded back in areas to partially excavate the layers, revealing flashes of luminous colour buried within. The paintings embody a vital energy and a sense of movement, analogous in some ways to constant change – social, economic, political – within metropolitan communities.