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Space 204 opens new exhibit October 19, 2017, Elaine Bradford exhibition, “So All Of This Is My Fault?”

Posted by on Monday, September 25, 2017 in News and Events.

Distance Between Us, 2016. Wool and acrylic yarn, found ceramic figurines, fiberfill. 15″/26″/5″

So All of This is My fault?
Elaine Bradford

October 19 – December 7, 2017

Elaine Bradford learned to crochet from her grandmother. Crochet brings to mind hours of labor, societal histories, and concepts of comfort and warmth. She finds solace, both for personally, and projected onto the objects she covers through the slow repetitive process. The act of crocheting cannot be separated from her memories of personal history.

Bradford is a collector; mining thrift and antique stores to find discarded pieces of people’s lives. The collectibles, which viewers might find on a shelf in their house, have been transformed. The found family photos have been repurposed. The pieces in this exhibition are representations of relationships. The extensions of crochet and embroidery represent hopes, thoughts and fears that can bind people together, or tear them apart. These fibers are literal portrayals of being wrapped up in another person, and the distance or closeness that can be created between one another. There is a lot about longing and unrequited love. She takes strangers discarded objects, connecting them with crochet, and creating personal portraits.

Elaine Bradford lives and works in Houston, TX.  She holds an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (2003) and a BFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2000). Her work has been included in shows at Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, IL; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, New York, NY; Handmade in America Gallery in Asheville, NC; and Centre Culturel Aragon in Oyonnax, France. She is a founding member BOX 13 ArtSpace, an innovative artist run studio and gallery space in Houston. For more information, visit her website elainebradford.com Image: Distance Between Us, 2016, wool and acrylic yarn, found ceramic figurine, fiberfill, 15” x 26” x 5”.

Bradford’s exhibition, “So all of this is my fault?” will open in Space 204 at the E. Bronson Ingram Studio Arts Center on Vanderbilt University’s campus.  The exhibition will be on view beginning on October 19, 2017 and with it’s final day on December 7, 2017.  An reception is scheduled for October 19, 2017 from 4pm to 6pm.