Elizabeth Bradford

Artist Bio

Elizabeth Bradford is descended from generations of North Carolina farmers and her work reflects an inherited preoccupation with the land. In recent years she has explored wild places as a naturalist and backpacker. Many of her paintings are based on her experiences of  the wilderness.

Drawing inspiration from children’s book illustrators, she renders the truth in an allegorical, heightened form causing the viewer to guess at secret narratives.  Among her other influences are the Pattern and Decoration movement of the 70’s, the innovations of late 19th century European painters, and the formal structure of Abstract Expressionism.  All of this is rendered in brushwork expressive of both expansive energy and a calculated mediated precision.

Generally executed in acrylic on canvas, the scale of her work varies from small and intimate to large and enveloping.  It carries a sense of the artist’s reverence for the spirituality of the unspoiled natural world and her hope for our recognition and preservation of it.