Mark Bradford
Q7
Q7
2020 Mixed media on canvas 182.9 x 243.8 cm / 72 x 96 in
In ‘Q7’, Mark Bradford’s latest Quarantine Painting, squares of electric red, yellow, orange, and blue paper flash from within deep pockets of tight gridded structures created by rope that the artist glued onto a city map. Two wide, parabolic channels of green lines, just visible through the dense layers, approach the center from opposite sides of the canvas before careening apart, one ending just at the top edge of the painting while the other punctures the perimeter on the right side below chiseled swashes of red, white, and blue paper.
In his Quarantine Series, first exhibited in a one-of-a-kind online exhibition, Mark Bradford explores his formal and technical language in a series of intimate, personal, and visually stunning paintings. ‘Q7’ features Bradford’s signature hot spots that have become familiar motifs in his works in recent years. Here, however, instead of wads of paper rising from the surface of the canvas, we see pixels of color that radiate from below, signifying the deep embeddedness of the political and social power structures that Bradford has explored for the past more than twenty years.
Mark Bradford
Mark Bradford (b. 1961 in Los Angeles) is a contemporary artist known for his large-scale abstract paintings created out of paper. After accumulating layers of various types of paper onto canvas, Bradford excavates their surfaces using power tools to explore economic and social structures that define contemporary subjects. Bradford’s practice includes painting, sculpture, video, photography, printmaking, and other media.