Bradley Bergey

Last night I went to an art exposition in Poble Sec at Iluminarte (http://iluminartefotos.blogspot.com). A friend of mine, Bradley Bergey (http://www.crywonder.com), is one of the most interesting contemporary painters I’ve met. There are a lot of artists, illustrators & graphic designers out there today, and just by living in a city and walking the streets on a daily basis (and watching TV, of course), we’re all awash in cool & often unique visual images. In the last few decades it has become progressively more difficult to create 2-dimensional pieces that stand out from the constant stream of respectable art coming at us, but Bradley’s work definitely does stand out. His pieces combine an obvious obsession with materials & process (incorporating collage, wax, and elaborate layering and scraping techniques) with conceptual ideas that dwell in the realm of fundamental psychology and mythology. There are a few lines from William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech that often echo through my head when I come face-to-face with vital artworks, whether visual, literary or musical:

...the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again… leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.

Bradley has a distinct ability to present those universal truths with a freshness that’s devoid of the least pretension. There’s an archetypal eeriness to his work that can stop you in your tracks, because the themes he presents in the most intriguing of his paintings spring directly from the core issues we all experience in our lives and minds. Click on his website link above for a fast and simple presentation of some of his pieces.