émergent magazine, interview by Charlie Mills
2025
This summer David Zwirner will present an exhibition of new paintings by American artist Joe Bradley (b. 1975, Maine, US) at the gallery’s London location in Mayfair. It is Bradley’s second exhibition with David Zwirner since the announcement of his representation in May 2023, following his celebrated debut at David Zwirner New York, Vom Abend, in Spring 2024.
Internationally acclaimed for an expansive visual practice that encompasses painting, drawing, and sculpture, over the past twenty years Bradley has consistently reinvented his approach to his art, from modular minimalist-style paintings and sculptures to rough-hewn, heavily worked surfaces featuring pictographic and abstract elements.
Bradley’s first show at Zwirner, Vom Abend, showcased a series of large-format paintings that continued his exploration of form and composition with densely applied passages of speckled paint and daubs of oil, creating textures that suggest celestial or evening skyscapes.
In his upcoming show, figurative elements, which Bradley had begun to develop in previous works, emerge as central compositional structures. The pieces feature black contour lines that serve as scaffoldings for swaths of color, floral blots of brushy paint, and scraped and stippled textural patches – pushing his work into a distinctive new direction.