Dove Bradshaw

Dove Bradshaw is a painter, sculptor, photographer, and set designer known for helping to introduce the concept of indeterminacy to the world of visual art. Inspired by the theories of experimental composer John Cage, Bradshaw allowed unpredictable factors to decide the fate of her artwork. In the 1969 installation Plain Air, Bradshaw gave a pair of mourning doves free range in her studio. This installation-cum-performance was documented in photographs and silver casts of broken eggshells. Her Contingency series, which she began in 1984, was made up of chemical paintings that changed capriciously depending on their interactions with the indoor atmosphere.

For many years, Bradshaw worked as an artistic advisor to the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, designing sets, costumes, and lighting for his avant-garde dance performances. For the sixth Gwangju Biennale, Bradshaw created Six Continents, a group of six sculptures composed of salts taken from each continent (with Eurasia counted as a single landmass) and funnels. When touched by water from the funnels, each sculpture reacted differently, responding to the various minerals. The artist relishes in relinquishing control over her work, giving artistic agency to the mercurial forces of nature.

Bradshaw is the recipient of many grants and prizes, including the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for sculpture, the Pollock Krasner Award for painting, a Furthermore Grant enabling the publication of her monograph, and the National Science Foundation for Artists Grant. Her work has been widely exhibited, including solo shows at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (1991), the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh (1991 and 1999), and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (1998), and is represented in the permanent collections of major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the National Gallery in Washington, DC, the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, and the Centre Pompidou.