Tuesday 3 July 2007

Shane Bradford

Shane Bradford's artistic practice is somewhere between painting and sculpture. He layers objects with paint by dipping them in bright rainbow hues, and the result is a paradoxical confection: his toy planes, cars and soldiers look almost good enough to eat...and his cooking utensils, dipped in the same colours, look poisonous. He performs a neat inversion: unpalatable subjects are made harmless and playful, and safe domestic subjects are made toxic. One, he seems to suggest, is a consequence of the other.

Bradford won this year's Celeste Art Prize, awarded "to promote painting in its widest sense", and his entry, "Moths", is certainly an exceptional work: his rainbow-coloured planes and soldiers are attached to darts which, stuck in the wall, appear to have been attracted to the glowing light-bulb which hangs in front of them.

1 comment:

Jerome said...

I like Shane Bradford's work so much! True: it really seems like everything could be edible - i like the geometric constructions and combinations