For the past 6 months Jacqueline Bradley has been an artist in residence at the Canberra Glassworks, supported by the Australia Council for the Arts and in association with Aquifer, a territory-wide program of dialogue, events and exhibitions responding to the current climate crisis.
At the culmination of this opportunity Bradley’s exhibition ‘the tender’ is a poetic and visceral presentation that can be understood as a contemporary ‘still life’.
In the show, curated by Aimee Frodsham, Bradley looks to flesh (both fruit and human) as a touchstone for considering seasons, cycles, narrative and ‘the body as a mould for producing, in the same way that each seed holds a blueprint for a future plant’.
The nod to fertility also makes us think about offshoots such as pleasure, the senses, decay, beauty and the fleeting moments that one after the other comprise the garden path of life.
Known for her striking creations which meditate on the nuances and relationship between form and material Bradley has a history of alluring and thoughtful sculpture, drawings, assemblages, wearable and performance works using found objects, fabric, metal and timber.
Now, working in glass she is again musing on object and material to give form to feeling as she considers the cycle of eating and feeding and growing and rotting.
You can visit the exhibition until 27 March at the Canberra Glassworks.