03 Oct Meet the Artist: Joseph Bradley
Each quarter, we display work from a different local artist at our Main Street Real Estate Gallery. Our newest featured artist is Joseph Bradley.
Joseph Bradley is a nationally known artist showing his work in New York City, Denver, Houston, Chicago, and Charleston. Owning a successful gallery and studio in Greenville’s Art District, Bradley creates work for private collectors and corporations. His paintings have recently been published in a book by Chronicle, carried in Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters.
“I grew up in a old ramshackle farm house in the upstate of SC in a tight knit family. Honestly, I never thought I would grow up to be an artist. An experience during my internship in college changed my trajectory: I was held up in a bank robbery. Even though that event was traumatic, I was forced to evaluate what energized me and subsequently migrated a great deal of scattered ambitions into being a visual artist.”
To learn even more about Joseph, we asked him some questions about his work.
1. What piqued your interest in art?
From an early age, I gravitated towards painting and sculpting. Later in college, I took an art class as an elective and found that I was constantly putting my thoughts and energy toward this one elective and losing interest in my actual major. The next semester, I changed my major.
2. How would you describe your style of art?
I describe my work as inspired by the decorative arts around the turn of the century. I employ pattern, playfulness, experimentation and the use of many layers.
3. Where do you gather most of the inspiration for your work?
I paint the things around me to which I have a personal connection – those things I find most beautiful in the world.
4. What’s your favorite piece of your own work?
When I’m asked what my favorite piece is, I have a hard time answering that. It’s like, “which one is your favorite child?” Honestly, I’m never satisfied with my work. Every piece I make is another attempt at getting it right, at bettering myself, and at trying to put down more clearly in paint what is in my head.
5. What’s an interesting fact about you or your work?
There are about 30 layers of paint in my pieces.
6. What famous artist do you most admire?
This year I saw Michelangelo’s work in Italy firsthand. Seeing someone so completely dedicated to the work itself and not the prestige that goes along with it was such a contrast to what current culture says a successful artist is.
To learn more about Joseph Bradley, visit his website.
Come meet Joseph Bradley at our Artist Reception on October 12th from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Main Street Real Estate Gallery. Joseph’s art will be on display at the gallery from October – December.
