"The alchemical and physical processes of painting are the foundation of my creative practice. The studio becomes a laboratory for experimentation and the interaction of diverse materials. This process enables me to continually arrive at new destinations until the paintings attain a higher level of physicality and contemplation.”
Virginia Bradley is a distinguished American contemporary, abstract painter.
Bradley's research into natural phenomena, geological and oceanographic formation serves as a starting point for her abstract works. Like an alchemist she transforms the work through the use of diverse materials and physical acts. Virginia adds and subtracts into the painting surface by pouring paint, sanding, drawing and printing while simultaneously experimenting with chemical reactions to the surface. Thus her studio becomes a laboratory for experimentation, an athanor for the interaction of diverse materials.
She repeats these processes until the piece evolves into a finished state of multiple luminous layers, referring to water, the richness of the air and the unknown and attaining a higher level of physicality and contemplation.
Throughout her career Virginia Bradley has received prestigious painting fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Arts Midwest NEA, Minnesota State Arts Board, and The Lighton International Artists Exchange Program.
She has been honored to be a fellow throughout the world including ACME Studios in East London, the London Zoological Society, Yaddo, Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi, India, Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain, Ragdale, and the Virginia Center of Creative Arts.
Her paintings have been widely exhibited nationally and internationally at venues like the Delaware Contemporary Museum, Blue Star Center for the Arts, Hoyt Institute of Art, Freedman Gallery (Albright College), Abington Art Center (Philadelphia), The Minneapolis Institutes of Arts, The Soap Factory and the Florence Biennale (Firenze, Italy). Her paintings are included in many public and private collections.
Prior to moving to the bucolic Berkshires, where her home and studio laboratory is located, she served as Professor of Art, teaching painting and drawing at the University of Delaware.
