Kip Bradley, a Savannah-based artist, will be the featured artist for the months of September and October at The Kalmanson Gallery of Emanuel Arts Council. An opening reception for “Knee Deep Muddy Adventures in Observational Painting” will be held Thursday, Sept. 21, from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition itself will be on display through Oct. 26. Kip has been awarded a Georgia Sea Grant’s Artists, Writers, and Scholars (AWS) grant to paint six marsh locations spanning the Savannah Coast four times over the course of September 2022 to September 2023.
For the past 13 years, Kip has worked as the Studio Programs Coordinator at the Telfair Museums. Working locally and internationally, he also organizes sketching and painting groups and teaches workshops encouraging people to explore a sense of presence through painting and drawing. An active landscape painter, Kip makes on average three on-site plein-air (outdoors) paintings and one still-life painting each week. The work strives to balance the material of the painted surface juxtaposed with the traditional illusion of volume and depth. A consistent routine of painting and social media posting with written narratives has been established over the last 12 years. Kip exhibits artwork regionally and nationally and is an Associate Member of the American Impressionist Society. He often participates in regional plein-air painting competitions.
Artist statement: “I would like to further my awareness in order to find unity in the patterns of nature and painting to share a story of appreciation for life at the marshes edge and to know what is natural to both. Pattern and repetition are the most significant progressive and structural elements in art and nature. Consistent and repetitive investigations on location through direct observations, research, and journaling are an effort to better see and understand me in place. Through color and mark, the work strives to balance the materiality of the painted surface juxtaposed with the traditional illusion of volume and depth, balancing the fragility of what we see and know.”
The event is free and open to the public. The Kalmanson Gallery is located at 109 N. Green Street, Swainsboro. For more about Kip Bradley, go to kipbradley.com. For more information on Emanuel Arts Council programming, find them on Facebook and Instagram; or call 478-237-2592.
