Over the past three decades, Dove Bradshaw has explored the concept of indeterminacy and the unpredictable effects of time, weather, erosion and atmospheric conditions on a range of materials. Bradshaw has synthesized divergent conditions often associated with contemporary sculpture: the conceptual and physical, the ephemeral and concrete, the absolute and contingent. Her sculpture and painting confront philosophical and aesthetic paradoxes that exist within the realms of science, "magic, alchemy, and the natural world."(1)

In the 1980s, Bradshaw observed the chemical reaction that occurs when liver of sulfur is applied to silver. Her investigations evolved into the Contingency paintings – large-scale versions of which are included in this exhibition. Bradshaw applies liquid chemicals to surfaces of silver leaf, much like an abstract expressionist uses paint. The reaction is instantaneous and pervasive – the silver turns a brilliant coppery gold; turquoise hues emerge, then deep blue, then green, and eventually an iridescent black. A chemical transformation is at work, subtle shifts in color and pattern continue to develop as the painting responds to humidity, light, temperature and other environmental “contingencies.”

"Negative Ions II," consists of a 1000 ml separatory funnel suspended above a conical mound of salt. Water drips from the funnel at a rate of 5 drips per minute, slowily eroding the salt at approximately two inches per month. The work demonstrates an indefinite progression, simultaneously expressing the past and present – a record of time. As John Cage remarked, Bradshaw’s work is "willing to give of itself and to change itself, and without losing itself. "(2) A similar work, "Waterstone," generates an interaction between water and limestone, "reminding us that stone, like all nature, is alive."(3)

Dove Bradshaw was born in 1949 and grew up in New York. In 1969 she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. In 1975, she was awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; in 1985, she received the Pollock-Krasner Award; in 2003, a Furthermore Grant; and in 2006, The Artist’s Grant from the National Science Foundation.

Bradshaw is included in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh; the LeWitt Collection, Chester, CT; Fields Sculpture Park at Art OMI International Arts Center, Ghent, NY; Arkansas Arts Center; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama; and the Rubin Museum of Art, New York. Her work has been widely exhibited in the US, Europe, and Asia. Bradshaw lives and works in New York City.

(1) Jan Castro Garden. "Dove Bradshaw," in Sculpture Magazine, April 2008.
(2) John Cage and Thomas McEvilley, “A Conversation,” in Dove Bradshaw, Works, 1969-1993 (New York: The Sandra Gering Gallery, 1993), pp. 12-13.
(3) Mark Swed. "Dove Bradshaw," The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1998, pp. 13.