NYAB Event - Bradley Hart "What? Where? When? Why? How?"

Bradley Hart "What? Where? When? Why? How?"

gallery nine 5

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gallery nine5 presents "What? Where? When? Why? How?," Bradley Hart’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibit converges on Hart’s unique creation process of his current body of work, “Wasted Paint & Created Waste.”

The exhibit focuses on the series “Wasted Paint & Created Waste,” a group of works composed of discarded materials from the artist’s studio, as well as elements of completed pieces from “Impressions” and “Injections,” two ongoing series.

Bradley Hart highlights a medium most often associated with packaging artwork rather than inspiring it, the “quintessential dumb material,” a single bubble of bubble wrap. In his pieces, however, this object is given autonomy as a symbol for production and preservation. On the one hand, the bubble refers to dots or pixels, the building blocks of the technological world that surrounds us. Pixels on computer screens store our memories with social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The process of injecting bubble wrap with paint in order to create one coherent picture, references pixilation as a combination of 1’s and 0’s that result in an image for us to consume. On the other hand, when a likeness of a loved one is injected into bubble wrap, the material’s inherent purpose is underscored - an image is being preserved as a memory in an object that is utilized for protection and safeguarding.

What? Where? When? Why? How? must be considered in context of the interaction of its many different parts. The process starts with the creation of an “Injection” piece in which Hart uses syringes loaded with paint to fill a developed grid of bubble wrap, with color. Upon completion of the injected work, the drippings are removed from the backside of the plastic to reveal an “Impression,” thus becoming a work with its own meaning and story. Hart’s process is innovative and simultaneously echoes various movements in art history and technology including pointillism, screen-printing, TVs and LCD monitors.

At every level of his studio practice, Hart recycles as a function of the work. The artist reuses the syringes; the dried paint in the mixing jar; and the collected drips of paint on the bubble wrap and the drop sheet. Hart uses these raw materials in “Wasted Paint & Created Waste,” keeping the legacy of what came before while advancing and evolving the process to create something original. These sculptural paintings become a multi-dimensional manifestation of the “creative process.” Wildly colorful and intricately tangled, the unaware observer might mistake the canvas to be littered with plastic, when in fact the material is most often manipulated paint. The series illustrates the expanding nature of Hart’s work; the pieces constantly evolve, and do not have a designated end point. The fundamental contradiction of old vs. new creates the tension through which lens Hart’s works should be observed.

Bradley Hart has exhibited his work in many site-specific installations in New York City. His work is featured in private collections in New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, London, and Italy.

[Image: Bradley Hart "Created Waste – Untitled #5" Acrylic paint on canvas 11 1/4 x 14 in.]