Katherine Bradford's recent paintings can be read as hilarious and catastrophic, decorative and sublime. They are concerned with the ocean, populated by boats and bathers, as a metaphor for the vagaries of modern life. Like many maritime artists before her, Bradford enjoys capturing waves with vigorous brushstrokes, but she does not aim at rendering nature realistically. Instead, she subversively imitates abstract art, reinterpreting it in her own figurative idiom. The result is an original and inimitable tribute to contemporary art by this New York-based painter who also is a long-time member of the Maine arts community. Bradford received a Guggenheim fellowship and an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2011. The New York Times characterized her work as painted “loosely with infectious joie de vivre … luminous and sumptuously tactile.”

Friday, August 9, 2013

Reception at 6:00 p.m.

Artist's Gallery Talk at 7:00 p.m.