Shelf Paintings.

Katherine Bradford, Phoenix, 2014.

Katherine Bradford advances that her ideas of Shelf Paintings originated by noticing that some mayor part of her subject matter always seemed to be focused on the bottom part of her works. She then thought of "removing" these out hence the idea of Shelf Paintings.

Discovering her was like a breath of fresh air, all I wanted to do next was to try one too.Play of boundaries again: Is it a painting?; Is it a sculpture?; Is it a relief Sculpture?; Is it a Shelf?..

Reading about her stunningly simple idea; I started furiously thinking about how a painting can "CONTAIN" elements and the psychological implication behind "collecting" and treasuring objects: linking with memory, making meaning and attachment. One article describes her work in this way: "Each painting from the beginning of the show to the end is thoroughly felt in three dimensions, offering detail from all views with front and center being the ultimate read. This gives the work a performative feel with shelf as stage and objects as actors. The best seats may be front and center, but there are also interesting and complex views from stage left, and the orchestra pit. Even as we are the viewers, however, the paintings with their frontal protrusions seem to be viewing, and reflecting upon themselves." http://www.paintingisdead.com/katherine-bradford-@-arts-leisure.html

My Shelf painting was an important activity as I shifted my interest from the process of intuitive painting to the discovery and integration new elements/objects and information. My process was hence different in the sense that I started by giving up the way I used to do my paintings to be fully engrossed in another creative process whereby creating new patterns of perception and a shift from the routine, the repetitive and the persistent. I found out however that as I engaged in a reflexive dialogue with my work, I did not shared the same interest as Katherine; hence I was accomodating new visions and looking beyond what I already know to the unknown. I was also fully satisfied by the personal response and its impactual feel.