It’s turning into a good summer for Banff-born artist Wendy Bradley.
Bradley has a solo show opening this week at the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies and later this summer, will be represented at Canada House Gallery.
“That’s been a goal of mine since 1997,” she said of both recent successes. “My first one was to have my own solo show at the Whyte and then after that I wanted to show at Canada House because it has been such a huge presence in Banff and Western Canada and it seemed to fit that since I was born here and grew up here I should be represented by them here.
“It’s a very prestigious gallery and I’m really happy with the way Barb and Eric (Pelham) continue to grow the gallery and who they are as people.
“I’m very excited. I feel as if I’m really walking into my future right now and it is really exciting.”
W.J. Bradley: Seasons, Art Show and Sale, opens in the Swiss Guides Room Friday (June 27) with a reception from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
It’s a fitting time for Bradley to take this big step forward, as her work is also showing a new direction and maturity with an exploration of abstraction.
“There’s a sense of abstraction that is happening too that is very cool. It’s a step away from the representational, but its not so far away that I’m losing touch with that,” she said.
Bradley described it as natural progression that comes with a new chapter in her life. She’s at a point in her career as a landscape painter that her skills, techniques and knowledge are more refined than they were 10, or even five years ago.
But perhaps most importantly, Bradley is a grandmother now and that has had a subtle, but important effect on her work.
“A big piece of that when I became a grandmother twice in one year even in preparation for that event happening, what you think about, what you’re introspective about, what you value in your life shifts just a little bit and that is where I think it is from and it is going to be reflected in the work, it can’t not,” she said.
Her paintings are still very much hers, especially down to the glaze that give her work depth and a remarkable reflective quality in the water and sky.
Bradley’s show will be the last art show and sale presented in the Swiss Guides Room before the Whyte Museum transitions that space into a founders’ gallery where the work of Peter and Catharine Whyte will be presented and celebrated.
“I’m so grateful to have this show at the Whyte,” Bradley said. “I’m the last artist in this format, so I definitely want to express my gratitude and gratitude on behalf of all the artists who have been part of this particular program of shows that they have done over the last few years because it is incredible important to us in the community to have that exposure and to have that calibre, there’s a credibility with showing at the Whyte Museum and it opens doors tremendously for us as artists here in the Bow Valley and it can’t be understated how valuable it has been to us.”
