This year I plan to do alot more artist profiles in an effort to turn you all on to even more great artists. Though I will continue to profile major artists like the one I am profiling today I will profile alot more of the great emerging talent out there. Artists like myself who are doing our thing, but not on the radar screens yet of the major collectors and 'establishment.'

Todays profile is of a great artist who I've had a chance to meet on a couple of occasions. He work is inspiring and very interesting to me. His name is Mark Bradford.

Mark Bradford was and born in my hometown of Los Angeles, California. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts, located at Valencia, California, U.S., earning an MFA in 1997 and a BFA in 1995. Mark is known for grid-like abstract paintings combining collage with paints. He has won the Bucksbaum Award (2006), the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award (2003), the Nancy Graves Foundation Grant (2002) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award. Bradford has exhibited in the Sao Paulo Biennial (2006), Whitney Biennial (2006), Liverpool Biennial (2006), ARCO 2003 in Madrid, In Site at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and the Centro Cultural de Tijuana, USA Today at The Royal Academy in London, and Street Level (2007) at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The Los Angeles Times newspaper insert of "West" magazine featured an eight page article on the artist, June 11, 2006.

Mark creates large-scale works on canvas that deploy techniques and materials to spectacular effect. he appropriates imagery from his surroundings, the artist pairs an examination of the formal issues of abstraction and figuration with sociological questions regarding systems of culture, communication, and exchange in his Los Angeles neighborhood. Found elements incorporated into his work, include permanent-wave endpapers, hair, foil, scraps of paper, and remnants of posters from abandoned lots, telephone poles, and fences. Bradford collages these materials onto canvas and then paints or sands away elements, often retracing underlying text. In his work, the collaged materials take on the character of cartographic grids and lines become an appropriate metaphor for the cultural mapping from which they emerged.

Bradford's paintings are part of an artistic practice that includes videos, prints, and sculptural installations. For the 2008 Carnegie International he has also created an installation on the rooftop of the museum. Inspired by the stranded victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, he has spelled out the words "HELP US" in a work visible only from an aerial viewpoint. (from CMOA.org)

For my info on me visit my official website
www.rickyday.net