Bubble Talk 5: The Bubbly Art of Bradley Hart
So we all agree that blowing bubbles is fun and that printing with bubbles and doing projects after that are great to do. Now I ask you, what about popping bubbles? Is that fun for you too? How about bubble wrap?
Today, we “wrap up” our Bubble Talk with the art of Canadian artist Bradley Hart. His medium – bubble wrap, not for popping though, folks!
“The multiple meanings of bubble wrap in Hart’s oeuvre are extensive: it can allude to the plastic nature of our society and it is an exemplary product of modern mass manufacturing.”– Deborah Zafman, Ph.D.
Here’s what Bradley Hart says about his work …
Bradley Hart talks about his bubble wrap art with Euronews
Image from euronews videoMy work is an album of memories made by injecting bubble wrap with paint to create pixelated photorealistic pictures. These pictures are copies of both snap shots of important people captured by me or given to me and maintained as part of my own personal photography collection, as well as powerful images obtained from other sources.
To create the Bubble wrap pieces, I inject each bubble individually with acrylic paint, acutely aware of the exchange between paint and the air inside as one of those two elements displaces the other. As the paint is injected into a bubble, the excess drips down the back of the piece. Upon completion of the injected work, the drippings are removed surgically from the back side of the plastic to reveal an impression of the work — a derivative work with its own meaning and story. Viewed together, the pieces each seem to engage the other and the viewer becomes an observer of a relationship created between the two.
At every level of my studio practice I recycle as a function of the work. I recycle the syringes; the dried paint in the mixing jar and collect the drips of paint on the bubble wrap and drop sheet. I then make derivative works, which repurpose the waste. Bubble wrap evokes the plastic nature of our society. 99% of everything we use is made out of plastic…a substance derived from crude oil. Most consumer goods are moulded plastic and are made through mass manufacturing. The injection process is complex and time consuming, which highlights the irony of applying such delicate physical artistry to a mass-produced material and the indestructible nature of plastic versus the fragility of bubble wrap.
Read Bradley Hart’s complete artist’s statement on his website
Images via mymodernmet
Images via mymodernmet
BRADLEY HART – incredible patience!
His art process: acrylic paint is injected to the individual bubbles on his bubble wrap ‘canvas’
“Hart’s work uses paint yet he’s not a painter. He injects it, peels it and assembles it, but he never actually paints. Although on a material level paint is his medium most of the time, his conceptual method are as much his medium as the paint object. Hart may be best understood as a conceptual materialist as distinct from how conceptual artist tend to lack concern with the formal aspects of an art object. Anyone seeing Hart’s work would consider them paintings.”
Read the complete essay by Deborah Zafman, Ph.D.
Here are some of Bradley Hart’s phenomenal pixelated renditions of “our world” using acrylic paint injected bubble wrap
Tulips
54 1/2” x 82 1/4”
acrylic paint injected bubble wrap
via his website
Steve Jobs
57 1/2” x 47”
acrylic paint injected bubble wrap
via his website
The subject matter of Hart’s injections is drawn from his personal photo album, his collection of me memories: photos of people from his life, or famous people (like Steve Jobs), places he has been, etc. He is essentially preserving his memories, protecting them in bubble wrap. And just as the bubble wrap serves as a symbol of contemporary society, in many respects, so does injection; Hart seems to refer to the injected reality in which we live, whether referring literally to injections intended to administer medicine, injections by drug abusers, botox injections in plastic surgery, or even tattoos that inject dye into the skin.
Excerpts from “The Madness to Bradley Hart’s Method: Technique Becomes Technology and Art Spawns Art” by Deborah Zafman, Ph.D. via the artist’s website
Insomnia
45” x 60”
acrylic paint injected bubble wrap
via his website
Watch this video to learn more about the fascinating art of BRADLEY HART
What do you get when you cross bubbles with art? Euronews
Upon completion of the injected work, the paint drippings are removed surgically from the back side of the plastic to reveal an impression of the work — a derivative work with its own meaning and story. Viewed together, the pieces each seem to engage the other and the viewer becomes an observer of a relationship created between the two.
TRIVIA: What was bubble wrap originally intended for?
In 1957, bubble wrap was invented by 2 engineers in New Jersey, USA and they originally tried to sell it as wallpaper. Read about the history of bubble wrap
So do… as artist Bradley Hart has done- find an extraordinary use for something society considers commonplace and make recycling a work ethic.
DAILY DOSE OF ART 
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