Auction details
11:00 AM PT - Feb 16th, 2012
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Killroy, 2008. Acrylic on canvas in two parts. Overall: 198 × 188 cm (78 × 74 in). Signed, titled and dated ‘KILLROY 08 Joe Bradley’ on the overlap.
PROVENANCE Greener Pastures Contemporary Art, Toronto American artist Joe Bradley’s bold post-Minimalist paintings, such as Killroy, employ a strict palette and severe simplicity. Yet each appears to hold its own character and personality as its primitive power plays to our human need for empathy and recognition. The canvas harks back to the complexities of Minimalism, yet curiously also reminds us of pixellated video games or a kind of easy-assemble DIY art. Bradley subverts our expectations of abstraction with a light-hearted playfulness, keeping each foot simultaneously in the past and future. Trinie Dalton describes this interplay between Bradley’s paintings and the art they look back on: “At first glance, Joe Bradley’s abstract, monochromatic canvases look like experiments in Minimalism; longer viewing, however, reveals surprising levels of figuration and what Bradley calls an ‘intentional shoddiness’ that points to a dissatisfaction with the narrative of twentieth-century painting… Described by the artist as expressively ‘pathetic’, [his work] takes on heroic, large-scale Color Field works, they have the primitive feel of ancient totemic sculptures. At the same time, subtle colour variations and surface texturing on the flimsy, store-bought canvases belie the fetishized perfection the paintings allude to.” (Trinie Dalton, in catalogue to Whitney Biennale 2008, p. 106) ImagesClick on thumbnails to see larger images:
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