Virginia Bradley

Virginia Bradley is a distinguished American contemporary, abstract painter. Her research into natural phenomena, and geological and oceanographic formations serves as a starting point for her abstract works. Like an alchemist, she transforms the work through the use of diverse materials and physical acts. Virginia adds and subtracts into the painting surface by pouring paint, sanding, drawing, and printing while simultaneously experimenting with chemical reactions to the surface. Thus her studio becomes a laboratory for experimentation, an athanor for the interaction of diverse materials.

She repeats these processes until the piece evolves into a finished state of multiple luminous layers, referring to water, the richness of the air, the unknown, and attaining a higher level of physicality and contemplation.

Throughout her career, Virginia has received prestigious painting fellowships from the McKnight Foundation, Arts Midwest NEA, Minnesota State Arts Board, and the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program. Virginia has been the recipient of several fellowships, including a 2020 Massachusetts Cultural Council Finalist Fellowship for Painting - recognizing the Yellowstone Series,  a McKnight Foundation Fellowship in Painting, Arts Midwest NEA Fellowship for Painting and two Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships in Painting and Drawing. She has also completed several Percent for Art Commissions for the Minnesota State Arts Board. 

She has been honored to be a fellow throughout the world including at ACME Studios in East London, the London Zoological Society, Yaddo, Sanskrit Kendra in New Delhi, India, Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacare, Spain, Ragdale, ant the Virginia Center of Creative Arts.

Her paintings have been widely exhibited nationally and internationally at venues like the Delaware Contemporary Museum, Blue Star Center for the Arts, Hoyt Institute of Art, Freedman Gallery (Albright College), Abington Art Center (Philadelphia), the Minneapolis Institutes of Arts, the Soap Factory, and the Florence Biennale (Firenze, Italy).

Her painting are included in many public and private collections. Prior to moving to the bucolic Berkshires, where her home and studio laboratory are located, she served as Professor of Art, teaching painting and drawing at the University of Delaware.