Running Animal

Executed in 2006, Joe Bradley's Wolf offers an ironic take on the conventions of Minimalist painting. A striking example of Bradley's signature style, the work with its paired down aesthetic recalls Frank Stella's serialized grid patterns as well as the nostalgic 'retro-futuristic' aesthetic of arcade game graphics. In Wolf, Bradley assembles four, large-scale brown canvases. Standing at over two meters in height, they take on an almost hieratic presence. With suggestive scatological splatters of paint strewn across the surfaces of each canvas, the painting functions as a 'reductive stand' for the ravenous, wild animal of its title.