''Expansion'' is a contemporary art

mixed media In visual art, mixed media describes artwork in which more than one medium or material has been employed. Assemblages, collages, and sculpture are three common examples of art using different media. Materials used to create mixed media art incl ...

sculpture (bronze and electricity) by

Paige Bradley Paige Bradley (born 1974) is an American sculptor known for representative figurative bronzes. She became known for her sculpture technique using mixed media of bronze and illumination. Her work became well known with the public display of her ...

, first exhibited in 2004. It is a depiction of a nude woman in a meditative state with light emanating from cracks in the body.

History

Bradley began with a wax sculpture of a woman who appears to be meditating in the

lotus position Lotus position or Padmasana ( sa, पद्मासन, translit=padmāsana) is a cross-legged sitting meditation pose from ancient India, in which each foot is placed on the opposite thigh. It is an ancient asana in yoga, predating hatha ...

. She then dropped the sculpture on the floor allowing it to break into pieces. Bradley cast the pieces of the wax sculpture in bronze, and assembled the pieces so that they floated apart from one another and then she had a lighting specialist construct a system which lights the statue from within. The work was first displayed in New York in 2004.

Design

The artist made a series of the sculpture in different sizes. The sculptures have names such as "half life" and "heroic". One of the ''Expansion'' sculptures at the Cutter & Cutter Fine Art gallery is life size (47" x 63" x 27"). The ''Expansion'' sculpture was said by the Cutter & Cutter Fine Art gallery to be the first ever bronze sculpture to utilize Illumination from within. The illumination makes the sculpture of a naked woman appear to be bleeding light from within out of the spaces between the cracks in the bronze.

Reception

In 2015 Alice Yoo of ''My Modern Met'' called it a "Cracked Light Sculpture" and a "stunningly beautiful sculpture". In 2017 ''

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'' put the sculpture at number 1 on their list of "42 of the Most Amazing Sculptures in the World". The success of her sculpture led Bradley to produce more sculptures (''Illumination and Illumination'', ''Half Life'') with the same theme of "Expansion".

References

External links

Video – creating Expansion
archived a
Ghostarchive.org
on 07 Jun 2022 {{DEFAULTSORT:Expansion (sculpture) Bronze sculptures in the United States 2004 sculptures Outdoor sculptures in the United States 21st-century sculptures Nude sculptures