Virginia Bridge
Virginia Bridge is a queer artist, for whom abstraction is a socio-political praxis.
Through a reiterative, queered deployment of an outmoded, mid-century, male aesthetic, Bridge finds a contemporary relevance for formalist art. The openness, richness and ambivalence of geometric abstraction is akin to poetry or music, enabling an open-ended provocation, inviting scrutiny, yet evading categorisation or assimilation.
Occupying a space of indeterminacy, the interaction of forms, fields of colour and edges within Bridges work, crosses boundaries and disrupts binaries, exploring the interplay between harmony and tension, balance and imbalance, perfection and imperfection, masculine and feminine, objectivity and subjectivity. While the formalist elements of her work estrange the viewer from the recognisable, eluding signification and interpretation, its affective, sensual characteristics invite connection through a haptic experience.
This series of relief prints, seen here for the first time, are hand burnished, rather than printed using a press. The integrity of this process, reliant on the human hand, creates a rich surface quality and deeper range of texture. Curved lines and hard-edged forms interact, in an exploration of tension and harmony.
Bridge graduated from the University of East Anglia in 1981, with a degree in Music with Fine Art and the University of the West of England in 2019, with an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking.
She has exhibited widely across the UK and is represented by David Simon Contemporary and The Drugstore Gallery.
Virginia Bridge is a queer artist, for whom abstraction is a socio-political praxis.
Through a reiterative, queered deployment of an outmoded, mid-century, male aesthetic, Bridge finds a contemporary relevance for formalist art. The openness, richness and ambivalence of geometric abstraction is akin to poetry or music, enabling an open-ended provocation, inviting scrutiny, yet evading categorisation or assimilation.
Occupying a space of indeterminacy, the interaction of forms, fields of colour and edges within Bridges work, crosses boundaries and disrupts binaries, exploring the interplay between harmony and tension, balance and imbalance, perfection and imperfection, masculine and feminine, objectivity and subjectivity. While the formalist elements of her work estrange the viewer from the recognisable, eluding signification and interpretation, its affective, sensual characteristics invite connection through a haptic experience.
This series of relief prints, seen here for the first time, are hand burnished, rather than printed using a press. The integrity of this process, reliant on the human hand, creates a rich surface quality and deeper range of texture. Curved lines and hard-edged forms interact, in an exploration of tension and harmony.
Bridge graduated from the University of East Anglia in 1981, with a degree in Music with Fine Art and the University of the West of England in 2019, with an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking.
She has exhibited widely across the UK and is represented by David Simon Contemporary and The Drugstore Gallery.
Virginia Bridge is a queer artist, for whom abstraction is a socio-political praxis.
Through a reiterative, queered deployment of an outmoded, mid-century, male aesthetic, Bridge finds a contemporary relevance for formalist art. The openness, richness and ambivalence of geometric abstraction is akin to poetry or music, enabling an open-ended provocation, inviting scrutiny, yet evading categorisation or assimilation.
Occupying a space of indeterminacy, the interaction of forms, fields of colour and edges within Bridges work, crosses boundaries and disrupts binaries, exploring the interplay between harmony and tension, balance and imbalance, perfection and imperfection, masculine and feminine, objectivity and subjectivity. While the formalist elements of her work estrange the viewer from the recognisable, eluding signification and interpretation, its affective, sensual characteristics invite connection through a haptic experience.
This series of relief prints, seen here for the first time, are hand burnished, rather than printed using a press. The integrity of this process, reliant on the human hand, creates a rich surface quality and deeper range of texture. Curved lines and hard-edged forms interact, in an exploration of tension and harmony.
Bridge graduated from the University of East Anglia in 1981, with a degree in Music with Fine Art and the University of the West of England in 2019, with an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking.
She has exhibited widely across the UK and is represented by David Simon Contemporary and The Drugstore Gallery.