Dove Bradshaw "Time"

Dove Bradshaw's work explores the phenomenon of time, making it visible through the traces it leaves behind. External factors such as environmental influences, atmospheric conditions, and chemical processes alter and shape the unstable natural materials and chemical substances that her works are composed of over time. As visible processes, these changes make the phenomenon of time tangible and perceptible.

In Bradshaw's pieces, aesthetics, metaphysics, and the laws of natural sciences converge, with time acting as a collaborative factor. The images from the Contingency series (since 1984) are reminiscent of the impulsive act of painting associated with Abstract Expressionism or evoke the abstract structures and production methods of the Piss Paintings by the Bad Boys of American Modernism, created through oxidation. In interaction with environmental factors like humidity, light, and temperature, a chemical reaction is triggered on the silver-coated works on paper using sulfur as an active agent. Over time, the silver surfaces oxidize into a copper-colored gold, initially revealing turquoise and then dark blue tones, ultimately culminating in a shimmering black.

Bradshaw's method navigates the spaces between time, chance, and uncertainty, resulting in works with open outcomes. In Life & Art (2014), a pyrite crystal, also known as fool's gold, is transformed into cube-shaped gold with a vibrant sheen. In the Notation series (since 2000), a bronze prism treated with ammonium chloride and copper sulfate is placed on blocks of limestone, causing a discoloration of the stone. This transformation illustrates the passage of time, with the works becoming metaphors for time itself.

In a completely different manner, the phenomenon of time is made visible in the work Angles IX (2005) from the Angles series. On a triangular canvas, another triangle, one-quarter the size of the larger triangle, is affixed, touching the midpoint of its longer side.

The work can be hung in twelve different ways, either aligning the inner or outer triangle with the horizon. The rotation of the triangles is determined by an evaluation chart, which, applied over the duration of the exhibition, specifies a hanging arrangement derived from chance for each day. Through the rotating positional changes of the triangles, the passage of time is recorded. Inextricably linked to the factor of time, Dove Bradshaw's works inherently embody the qualities of transience and instability.

(Miriam Walgate, 2014)