FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 3, 2017  

Fort Worth, TX

 

Kendal Smith Lake
Manager of Communications
817.840.2167
kendal@themodern.org
www.themodern.org
 
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth Presents
FOCUS: Katherine Bradford
November 4, 2017-January 14, 2018
 
 
The FOCUS series is organized by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth for the Director's Council, a group that supports acquisitions at the Museum. The series features three solo exhibitions annually, organized by Associate Curator Alison Hearst. FOCUS exhibitions are open to the public and are included in general museum admission: $10 for adults; $4 for seniors (60+) and students with identification; free for children 12 and under; free for Modern members.

 
Katherine Bradford is known for her vibrant palette, faux-naïf style, and eccentric compositions. Often built up over months and sometimes years, the surfaces of Bradford's paintings are textured, comprising multiple thin, semi-transparent coats of acrylic paint, with hints of pentimenti in the final compositions. Her recent works revisit several of her favored motifs, such as ships and swimmers - traditional and enduring subjects seen throughout art history. Bradford's canvases, however, typically portray more ominous, and often improbable, atmospheres in comparison to the relative calm of James Abbott McNeill Whistler's ship paintings or Paul Cézanne's portraits of bathers, for example. In her works, ocean liners collapse in the night sea, beachgoers and swimmers populate fearsome expanses such as ebbing waters and outer space, and sea monsters, as in Large Ocean Painting, 2016, rear their heads above a crowded ocean. Whether Bradford's paintings depict swimmers in raging tides or figures illogically floating in the cosmos, her work suggests humanity humbled by the vastness of nature.
 
While simple in form, her ongoing series of nocturnal paintings exhibit a range of colors, such as orange, neon green, and pink-violet, that glow and illuminate the otherwise dark scenes. In Pond Swimmers, 2016, the only source of light is emanating from the swimmers' orange-pink skin. Two figures in the work are set within a dense blue-purple pond, while one man in the foreground lies on a sliver of beach under the night sky. As with most of her paintings, the subjects in Pond Swimmers are pared down, fragmented, and faceless, which suggests the anonymous everyman. As the artist states, "I want to examine large themes that exist in any time or place - themes like isolation, community, play, or wonder. My paintings are full of awe for our place as small beings in an immense scheme of things. . . . My settings are universal and timeless and exist in the past as well as the future."
 
Katherine Bradford was born in New York City and is currently based in Brooklyn. She received a BA from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and an MFA from the State University of New York at Purchase. Bradford has been included in important group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, at such venues as MoMA PS1, Long Island City, New York; Yale School of Art, New Haven; and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Her work is in several public collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brooklyn Museum; Portland Museum of Art, Maine; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts. FOCUS: Katherine Bradford is the artist's first solo exhibition in Texas and features new and recent paintings.
 
 
The Director's Council
The Director's Council was formed in 1985 and supports the Modern with an annual acquisition for the permanent collection. The Director's Council sponsors the FOCUS series, which presents three solo exhibitions each year. Each exhibition opens with a private cocktail reception for the Council, giving the members an opportunity to meet the featured artist and discuss his or her work. One piece by each artist is chosen by the Museum director and curator to be part of the final selection voted on at the Council's Purchase Meeting each May. This format provides members with an in-depth understanding of the Modern's acquisitions process and offers a spirited and popular series of events. The annual dues, $600, include all the benefits of an Associate/Family-level membership and invitations to exclusive Director's Council events.
 
For a checklist, high-resolution images, or to schedule an interview, please e-mail the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, info@themodern.org.
 
 
 
LOCATION
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
3200 Darnell Street
Fort Worth, Texas 76107
Telephone 817.738.9215
Toll-Free 1.866.824.5566
Fax 817.735.1161
www.themodern.org
 
Museum Gallery Hours
Tue 10 am-7 pm (Feb-Apr, Jun-Jul, Sep-Nov)
Tue-Sun 10 am-5 pm
Fri 10 am-8 pm
 
General Admission Prices (includes special exhibitions)
$4 for students with ID and seniors (60+)
$10 for adults (13+)
Free for children 12 and under
Free for Modern members
Free every Sunday and half-price every Wednesday.
 
CAFÉ MODERN
Lunch 
Tue-Fri 11 am-2:30 pm
Brunch
Sat-Sun 10 am-3 pm
Dinner 
Fri 5 pm-8:30 pm
Coffee, snacks, and dessert Tue-Sun 10 am-4:30 pm

 
The Modern is closed Mondays and holidays, including New Year's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas.    
 
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