{"id":11718,"date":"2011-02-22T11:29:30","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=11718"},"modified":"2011-02-22T11:30:36","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T16:30:36","slug":"joe-bradley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/02\/22\/joe-bradley\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Bradley"},"content":{"rendered":"

The artist Joe Bradley has his studio in an old pencil factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There is no buzzer. You must call his cell phone to be let in, and then ride a manual elevator to the white concrete space where he works on the fifth floor. Bradley was part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial<\/a> and was recently featured in two solo shows<\/a>. I visited the thirty-five-year-old artist to talk about his evolving process as a painter.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photograph by Michael Nevin. <\/p><\/div>\n

This building is called the Pencil Factory. When you go outside, there are these giant pencils on the wall. It\u2019s got a lot of light, and it\u2019s quiet and big enough. You can have six or seven paintings up at the same time and don\u2019t have to shift them around.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t go into painting with any kind of plan. The ones I am happiest with I have no idea how I arrived at. The best ones are always a real surprise. For most of the paintings I use unprimed canvas and oil paint. I like drawing when the canvas is on the floor, and then I\u2019ll pin it up and see what it looks like on the wall. Sometimes, I turn it over and work on the other side. The nature of the oil paint is that it kind of bleeds through the canvas so you have some sort of residual marks seeping through from the other side and influencing the composition.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photograph by Michael Nevin. <\/p><\/div>\n

I need time, really. Eight uninterrupted hours is ideal. My day\u2019s a little irregular. If I have some kind of deadline, I try and get here at eleven in the morning. It depends. You have to know when to quit. \u00a0Sometimes you\u2019ll be rolling along and it\u2019s a good idea to stick around, and sometimes you\u2019re not going to hit it at all and you got to leave. If I have something to do, I\u2019ll stay here really late. There\u2019s no fixed schedule. I\u2019ve slept here a few times. I don\u2019t like to torture myself.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photograph by Michael Nevin. <\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019ve always avoided the idea of having a job, and I never wanted to turn this into a job. I have no assistants. Sometimes I\u2019ll have somebody come stretch canvases, but there\u2019s no need for anyone here. I think it\u2019s impossible for me to do anything when anyone\u2019s around. It\u2019s a lot of looking, really. I\u2019m not a real dynamic painter. It\u2019s not action painting. There\u2019s a lot of just sitting and looking and thinking. Then, I\u2019ll make a move every once and a while. You have to stalk the thing, you know?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photograph by Michael Nevin. <\/p><\/div>\n

There\u2019s more than enough information in the painting. I think the way they are read is interesting to me. Some people seem to get a lot out of them and some people think I am full of shit and they\u2019re just terrible. I don\u2019t like to hear people\u2019s elaborate excuses for making art, so I don\u2019t try to make any myself.\u00a0It is a funny form of communication. You make these things and you drop them off in a space and then, there\u2019s no way of telling what people think or what\u2019s coming across. Painting is very satisfying, but not exactly fun. I like the pace of it. I like that it\u2019s an experience that resists media. You have to be there in front of it to experience it\u2014that\u2019s a rare item these days.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Photograph by Michael Nevin. <\/p><\/div>\n

An exhibition of new drawings by Joe Bradley is on display at The Journal Gallery<\/a> on 168 North 1st Street, Brooklyn, from February 22 to March 27.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The artist Joe Bradley has his studio in an old pencil factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There is no buzzer. You must call his cell phone to be let in, and then ride a manual elevator to the white concrete space where he works on the fifth floor. Bradley was part of the 2008 Whitney Biennial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1857],"tags":[35,1883,1882,67,1859],"class_list":["post-11718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-studio-visit","tag-art","tag-greenpoint","tag-joe-bradley","tag-painting","tag-studio-visit-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJoe Bradley by Stephanie LaCava<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"February 22, 2011 \u2013 The artist Joe Bradley has his studio in an old pencil factory in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. There is no buzzer. 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