Artist Elizabeth Bradford, a descendant of generations of North Carolina farmers, weaves her Southern heritage into works of stunning color, texture and realism.
“My father and grandfather rode a tractor over our acres,” she writes in her artist statement, “and in my own way, I continue that tradition as a contemporary painter – working that same land with my eyes and my brush.”
Her brilliantly hued images of the land – as she remembers it – and of her native rural community are featured in an exhibition titled Elizabeth Bradford | Time + Terrain, opening Jan. 2 at the Franklin G. Burroughs-Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach, SC. An opening reception, featuring an artist-led gallery talk, will be held from 1 – 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 6 and is free for Art Museum members and is $20 per person for non-members.
Regular gallery hours will be from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 – 4 p.m. Sunday, through April 28.
During much of her adult life, Bradford has watched the loss of open spaces, the harvesting of old growth forests and the construction of new subdivisions-what she calls “the final harvest.” She sees her paintings as “an elegy for the land as I remember it and as it can still be found-in hidden pockets of the forests.”
The 27 paintings of various scale included in the exhibition are an attempt by the artist to capture the look and feel of these wild places before they are forever changed, and to perhaps cause the viewer to consider the cost of those changes.
Bradford studied art at Randolph Macon Woman’s College, the University of North Carolina and at Davidson College. She recently completed a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and VCCA’s outpost in France, Moulin à Nef. Her work has been included in the US State Department’s Art in Embassies Program, which places work by American artists in embassies around the world. She was chosen in 2006 as the featured artist for North Carolina’s first statewide Women’s Conference. She has had many solo exhibitions, including shows at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Davidson College, Davidson NC and Hood College, Frederick, MD.
Elizabeth Bradford | Time + Terrain is curated by Carla Hanzal and organized by the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum, Blowing Rock, NC.
Admission to the Art Museum is free at all times but donations are welcome.