Katherine Bradford’s new ‘Mother Paintings’ at Canada New York depict women caring for sick family members, offering the comfort of a lap and waiting for a school bus, but her signature abstract style upends traditional representations of moms. By avoiding identifying details, she creates symbolic characters and instead directs our focus to the vivid fields of color that make up what might otherwise be mundane scenes. Here, in ‘Mother Joins the Circus – Second Version,’ a mom is taken away, inducted into a new aspect of life by mysterious characters who literally turn things upside down. (On view at Canada Gallery through May 15th).
Katherine Bradford, Mother Joins the Circus – Second Version, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 72 inches, 2021.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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