Abstract painters strive to capture the pinnacle and substance of what they perceive and experience – the crucial inner facts of life. Abstract painters aim to capture the ethereal, reveal the invisible, and portray the mystical rather than painting in a representational manner (National Gallery of Art Talks). The potential to express and explore abstract ideas exists in abstract art. Since no other species has the capacity to think, consider, and imagine in the abstract, this original concept has the potential to raise the art to a spiritual realm.
Contemporary artist Mark Bradford is well known for his enormous paper art movements. Bradford’s work examines socioeconomic and cultural mechanisms that objectify disadvantaged groups and the bodies of vulnerable groups (National Gallery of Art Talks). It is distinguished by its rich formal, material, and philosophical sophistication. The social connection method that Bradford uses to reinterpret objectifying social systems by bringing modern art and concepts into areas with little access to galleries and other cultural centers is just as crucial to his body of work.
Bradford has developed a distinct aesthetic language using commonplace items and equipment from the home improvement store aisles. Bradford’s work, which is commonly referred to as social abstraction, is founded on his conviction that every material and method has a more profound significance than just its potential for creative expression. His early experiments with endpapers, the tiny, translucent tissue papers used in hairdressing, led to the development of his distinctive handwriting; since then, he has begun experimenting with a variety of writing mediums, including maps, billboards, movie posters, graphic novels, and merchant posters that promote predatory services in underprivileged areas.
Bradford first applies a pre-selected picture on canvas that has been chosen for its historical relevance, then outlines it with rope or caulk before adhering to multiple layers of various papers. Using tools of civilization, the artist then bleeds profusely, diminishes, and excavates the surfaces of his artworks to disclose junctions between the layers of symbolic materials, changing and extending the painting material (National Gallery of Art Talks). Bradford combines a variety of influences, much as how the layers of colored paper that make up each picture are sliced, lacerated, and scraped away. The allocation of power within social systems and its effects on the individual are two universal topics that the artist has examined throughout his career, and they are once again prominent in this show.
Despite not neatly fitting into this story of freedom and revolution, abstract painting was an essential part of the time due to its emphasis on legal nuance, color, and more covert symbolism. Abstraction is, therefore, unquestionably pertinent to issues of identity or consciousness as a critical and existential examination, even if these issues are not immediately apparent to spectators. The rise of abstraction has also welcomed attention to lineage issues and previous transitional characters (National Gallery of Art Talks). Many things start out as abstractions before becoming painfully concrete in one’s daily existence and knowledge of being perceived and understood in a particular manner.
To summarize, rather than painting in a representational style, abstract painters seek to capture the ethereal, unveil the unseen, and express the mystical. Instead of painting in a realistic style, abstract painters seek to capture the ethereal, unveil the unseen, and express the mysterious. Using everyday objects and equipment from the home improvement shop aisles, Bradford has created a distinctive visual language. Much like the layers of colorful paper that make up each painting are cut, torn, and scraped away, Bradford blends a multitude of inspirations.
Work Cited
National Gallery of Art Talks. “Mark Bradford on Reimagining Modernist Art.” YouTube. 2022. Web.