Artist’s Personal Collection

By Andrew Frost

Jessica Bradford’s discovery of old family photographs sold at markets and in second hand stores led to a fascination with translating these lost images into another medium. Bradford recreates her found images in drawing and watercolour, painting on zinc at the scale of the original images. These tiny pictures are displayed on wooden strips mounted on the gallery wall, bringing the viewer into a close and intimate encounter with familiar domestic scenes: children in a backyard, at a lookout, a pair of ladies atop a seaside rock.

Bradford’s treatment gives the images a tentative feel as pools and washes of ink obscure faces and render details of dress and place mere suggestions. Much has been written about our emotional connection to the photograph as a signifier of place and time, but in Bradford’s work this is stripped away resulting in a more generalised affect. Where the photo trouve valorises the poetry of chance Bradford’s work is more deliberate and thoughtful, excavating a personal relationship with the spooked anonymity of the forgotten image. The personal collection is the artist’s, a collection of memories overlaid on the surface of the print.

Until May 12

Firstdraft, Surry Hills

http://firstdraftgallery.com