Peder Lund

Joe Bradley (b. 1975, Kittery, Maine) shifts confidently through disparate styles and media: arranging monochrome paintings into Pac Man-like figures, scrawling primeval symbols on raw canvases, and painting large abstractions. More recently, he has included sculpture in his practice, presenting both figurative pieces in wood and bronze, and monumental, rectangular aluminium works in vibrant colours that can be shown both indoors and outdoors. Along the way, and across these expressions, Bradley has become one of the most closely watched artists of his generation.

Bradley was born in Kittery, Maine in 1975. After receiving his B.F.A. in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999, he moved to New York City. He continuously painted, and had his first solo show in Boston in 2002, where he exhibited landscape paintings. These were never straightforward landscapes, but sunsets and tropical scenes derived from found postcards that he would inject a bit of irony into, a cartoon-like feature that has remained in his work ever since. He quickly became a part of the New York art scene, and it did not take long before he was included in a number of solo and group exhibitions in the city.

Bradley’s work has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including at ConTEMPorary, New York (2003); P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island (2006); and Le Consortium, Dijon (2014). Recent group exhibitions include “EXPO 1: NEW YORK (curated by Klaus Biesenbach)”, P.S.1 Contemporary Art, Long Island (2013); “The Inevitable Figuration”, Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2013); “The Forever Now: Contemporary Paintings in an Atemporal World (curated by Laura Hoptman)”, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014–15); and “New York Painting”, Kunstmuseum Bonn (2015). Bradley’s work was included in the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2008). His work is included in public and private collections including The Saatchi Gallery, London; Hall Art Foundation, Reading; De La Cruz Collection, Miami; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. In the autumn of 2017, Bradley will have a major solo show at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo. Bradley currently lives and works in New York.