Paige Bradley

Paige Bradley – Sculptures in Bronze

     Paige Bradley is an American sculpture artist who gained fame for her figurative bronze works that were internally illuminated with electricity. Titled “Expansion”, the bronze sculpture depicted a woman sitting in a cross-legged position with light streaming from cracks in her body. This piece was originally photographed in 2004 against New York’s skyline, gaining international fame and putting Paige on the map.

      Paige Bradley’s (b. 1974) powerful sculptures of dynamically posed figures showcase more than just physical strength and passion – they testify to the inner strength and fortitude woven into the fabric of a person’s soul. Her own personal experiences are the starting point for Paige’s work, and she then uses her skill, intuition, and sensitivity to build these stories out into universally understood creations. The unseen and often unspoken dichotomies one encounters in life – joy and sorrow, dissonance and harmony, weakness and strength, ugliness and beauty – become powerfully alive in Paige’s sculpture, as she is an artist who has the rare ability to turn abstract feeling into three-dimensional form.

      Working in the figurative genre, Paige’s sculptures are anything but relics, antiques, or pastiches of figuration past. Rather, her works combine iconic media and uncommon skill with modern thought, philosophy, and psychology, speaking in the currency of our contemporary culture. Paige is also known for eschewing stylistic rules and parameters of any kind, which has kept stagnation far from her studio. In looking at the variety of thought-provoking work she has produced over her 25-year career, one can see how this mind set continues to serve her creative diversity: some of her figures sit strong and grounded in outdoor spaces; others float delicately in suspended compositions; others are sturdily wrapped in silk while stretching toward freedom. Although she primarily casts in bronze, Paige’s artwork also encompasses painting and charcoals, woodcuts, iron-bonded resin, aluminium, mixed media, or any other material she feels helps communicate her message.

in her own words

     “Inspiration comes from my connection to the world, my relationships with others, and my relationship with myself. I don’t need to travel the planet or hire dancers to find a muse. My individual journey is inspiration enough.Since I was nine years old I knew I would be an artist. I was drawing since I can remember and began casting my work into bronze when I was seventeen. Three decades later, I am still doing it – and I intend to never stop.”

       “As much as I try to avoid labelling myself, I am a figurative artist in everything I do. The figure to me is the perfect vehicle to communicate the human condition. My definition of success is to be a visionary through truthful and courageous artwork, work that communicates what it feels like to be alive in the world today.I keep moving my work forward by questioning, observing, looking for truth and searching for clarity. My goal is to have the courage to create what feels real, not necessarily beautiful, in order to create lasting, fine art.”

Paige Bradley

published in : paigebradley.com

Paige Bradley – Sculptures in Bronze

      Paige Bradley is an American sculpture artist who gained fame for her figurative bronze works that were internally illuminated with electricity. Titled “Expansion”, the bronze sculpture depicted a woman sitting in a cross-legged position with light streaming from cracks in her body. This piece was originally photographed in 2004 against New York’s skyline, gaining international fame and putting Paige on the map.

Ibrahim Mahama

Ibrahim Mahama

    Ibrahim Mahama is a Ghanian artist. He often works with found objects, transforming them in his practice and giving them new meaning. Mahama is best known for his practice of draping buildings in old jute sacks, which he stitches together with a team of collaborators to create patchwork quilts. Of the practice, Mahama says, “I used jute sacks because for me the history of crisis and failure is absorbed into the material. Their history speaks of how global transactions and capitalist structures work. And because how their humbleness contrasts with the monumentality of the buildings they cover.” He grew up in a polygamous family, and once noted that his collaborative nature could be a result of this unique environment.

Born in Tamale, Ghana in 1987, Mahama received his MFA in Painting and Sculpture from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, in Kumasi, Ghana in 2013. He lives and works in Tamale. Mahama was the youngest artist featured in the first Ghana Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, where he created a bunker-like space made out of the mesh used to smoke fish and filled it with references to Ghana’s history. Mahama has had multiple solo installations in Accra and Kumasi, as well as solo exhibitions in Dublin, Michigan, and at White Cube in London.

is an artist run project space, exhibition and research hub, cultural repository and artists’ residency. SCCA Tamale is an initiative of world-renowned Ghanaian artist, Ibrahim Mahama, as a contribution towards transforming the contemporary art scene in Ghana. The SCCA-Tamale team intends, with its diverse programming and research interests, to spotlight significant moments in Ghanaian and international art in a communal space. Affiliated to blaxTARLINES KUMASI, the Centre is operated by committed, dedicated and generous persons who produce critical discourse that will eventually be disseminated through exhibitions, publications and allied activities. SCCA-Tamale is dedicated to art and cultural practices which emerged in the 20th Century and inspire generations of artists and thinkers of the 21st Century and beyond.

published in : artnet.com

Ibrahim Mahama

 “I used jute sacks because for me the history of crisis and failure is absorbed into the material. Their history speaks of how global transactions and capitalist structures work. And because how their humbleness contrasts with the monumentality of the buildings they cover.”