Page Bradley

I featured Page Bradley here back in 2011 when she landed on a list of "breakthrough artists".  Last week I stumbled across another work of hers on an art blog and decided to check back with her web site to see what she has been doing. (Balance)

I found that she has been continuing along the same lines she had laid out in 2004 to 2011, focusing on human figures that embody a distinct tension:

From the moment we are born, the world tends to have a container already built for us to fit inside: A social security number, a gender, a race,a profession or an I.Q. I ponder if we are more defined by the container we are in, rather than what we are inside. Would we recognize ourselves if we could expand beyond our bodies? Would we still be able to exist if we were authentically ‘un-contained’?

(Blossom)

Bradley has long been fascinated by dance; ballet is after all a nearly perfect metaphor for the tension between order and freedom. Dancers soar, but in ballet their movements are strictly choreographed. (Ballet International)

Many of her figures have the rough texture of clay models that Rodin pioneered in bronze, and that my eldest son dismissed as "not finished." I don't mind, although in general I prefer the smoother pieces. (Anjali)

She has a whole series of figures like these, bound up in or escaping from mysterious folds of fabric. (Into the Light and Bound for Freedom)

Autumn

And one drawing, of a Bernini bust.

The artist in her studio.

Bradley had made many lovely things, but I think my favorite is still the first one I saw, Expansion.