Double Runner

Created in 2006, Joe Bradley's Double Runner offers a playful subversion of the conventions of minimalist painting. Recalling the grid patterns of Ad Reinhardt and the hard edged, pantone coloured paintings by Ellsworth Kelly, Bradley's work infuses both traditional formalism and a cartoonish humour to great effect. Arranged over seven parts in a spectrum of red, white and blue, Double Runner takes on a characteristically geometric shape. With its rectilinear grouping of vertical and horizontal elements it recalls two men in arms running along a track but articulated in a 'retrofuturistic' aesthetic of arcade game graphics. Towering at over two meters in height, the work is totemic, with a primitive and commanding presence that challenges the philosophically hard-line and self-referential definition of abstract painting.