Kay Bradner: Haven at Seager Gray Gallery

Kay Bradner: Haven

ha·ven noun 1. a place of safety or refuge. “a haven for wildlife” synonyms: refuge, retreat, shelter, sanctuary, asylum; 2. an inlet providing shelter for ships or boats; a harbor or small port. synonyms: anchorage, harbor, harborage, port, moorage, mooring, cove, inlet, bay “they stopped in a small haven”

Kay Bradner: Haven April 1 to April 30, 2017 Reception for the artist: Saturday, April 1, 5:30 to 7:30 pm Front Cover: Kay Bradner: Sixteen Birds, (detail), 2017, oil on aluminum, 29.75 x 60 in Back Cover: Kay Bradner: Sunset Plovers, 2017, oil on paper on aluminum, 26 x 28 in

Direct inquiries to: Seager Gray Gallery 108 Throckmorton Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-384-8288 seagergray.com

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Kay Bradner: Haven There is no mistaking the work of Kay Bradner with its crisp incised images on aluminum contrasted by areas of satisfying abstraction. Asked about the title of the exhibition the artist explained, “I have been thinking of our personal ways of creating safe havens in this large world.” In an earlier exhibition, entitled “Aloft,” Bradner painted flying dreams in our awake lives – hang gliders, sails and birds. “This show is similar,” explains Bradner, “like our paths to the feelings of elevation, our ways of creating a life that feels secure is personal and if we are lucky, is intertwined with feelings of freedom and joy.”

This exhibition represents a return to the gallery after a six year hiatus that was dense with both loss and transformation for the artist. The exhibition scheduled for 2013 had to be postponed after the passing first of Kay’s housemate, Gladys Howland and then her mother in 2012. Bradner had been both caretaker and roommate to Gladys, a former neighbor who had been blind since 1967. When Howland took a fall that caused her to need more care, Bradner moved in and set up her studio in the basement. Gladys passed away after reaching her 100th birthday. Shortly after, Kay’s own mother took a fall and died just months after Gladys. Bradner was forced to cancel the proposed one-person exhibition and needed time. “I was a little lost,” said the artist. “I wanted to find myself again in my art.” She wanted to be able to paint, not for a show, but for herself. “I think we are all searching all of our lives for ourselves,” she reflected, “for me the best way was to make art.”

The paintings began with images of treetops. She created long horizontal paintings of the tops of trees that she hung high in the room where she painted. She loved the comfort of looking up into the trees.

That beginning was a kind of epiphany for Bradner. She realized how much we see the world at eye level and she set about to purposely create images from high and low vantage points. The results were glorious paintings like “Sixteen Birds” and “Ten Birds” where treetops are illuminated with streams of sunshine exposing the clear images of small colorful bird perched on their branches.

Other paintings, like “Haven” and “Two to One” take the opposite vantage point, looking down from a high place. In the case of “Haven” we find ourselves looking on a harbor of tiny little boats from the point of view of graceful pelicans moving overhead. “Haven”, in particular shows how Bradner’s unique style is informed by her many years as a master printmaker. The background is actually abstract with pressed areas of pigment much like a monotype. The birds and boats are then carefully incised the way an etching might be created.

Kay Bradner Sixteen Birds oil on aluminum, 2017 29.75 x 60 in

After studying at New York University and the California College spent years as a master print maker, working with well-known artists Lincoln Press, named for her grandmother. When that business on her own art and career, painting in ways that no one has

of the Arts, Bradner at her own Katherine ended, she focused ever painted before.

“Fitted Sheets” is a particularly Bradner kind of work. The artist has a love of materials and the way they play in natural light. The billowing pink sheets are reminiscent of earlier works Bradner did with sails, orchestrating transparency and opacity in subtle moments that move from shadow to light. She also loves objects, normal everyday objects and she celebrates their usefulness. The clothespins in this work are from Bradner’s own collection. Some are 100 years old, some 50, some 25. “I have an entire history in clothespins,” she gests. The ladder in “Stripping Wallpaper” is similar, such a marvelous object, a simple machine that is tied both to usefulness and to memory.

As always, Bradner likes to work in series and the series reflect things that she loves - plovers, magnolias, waves. With each work, the artist intensifies her powers of observation, not just of the subject, but of everything around it – how the water looks at low tide at just that moment before it gets absorbed into the sand.

The time was good for Bradner. In March of 2013, she became a grandmother when her daughter Claire gave birth to Lita and then 3 years later brought Felix, Lita’s brother into the world. Lita is the curly-headed little girl in “Newton’s Cradle.” Bradner remembers fondly Gladys exclaiming to her just before she died, “I think I could be happy if I only had a swing.” Here again we see the clearly drawn image upon an abstract background that adds to the total effect.

As C. S. Lewis once wrote, “Sometimes the long way around is the short way home.” Six years after her last one person exhibition, Kay Bradner is back with her unique and generous view of the world and a style and palette all her own. In many ways “Haven“ refers not only to the subject matter of the paintings, but the act of painting itself, a place the artist can go until they are returned safely home.

We are glad to have her back.

Donna Seager March, 2017

Kay Bradner Ten Birds oil on aluminum, 2016 30 x 31.5 in

Kay Bradner Red Twigs oil on paper on aluminum, 2015 14.75 x 21.75 in

Kay Bradner Legion View oil on aluminum, 2015 36 x 45.5 in

Kay Bradner Magnolias oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 18.5 x 18 in

Kay Bradner The Passionate Magnolia oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 9.75 x 10.5 in

Kay Bradner The Dominant Flower oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 7 x 8 in

Kay Bradner The Passionate Magnolia oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 9.75 x 10.5 in

Kay Bradner The Passionate Magnolia oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 9.75 x 10.5 in

Kay Bradner Gentle oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 7 x 8 in

Kay Bradner Past, Present and Future oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 8 x 7 in

Kay Bradner Inner Fire oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 7 x 8 in

Kay Bradner Pink Magnolia oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 8 x 7 in

Kay Bradner Magnolia Buds oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 7 x 8 in

Kay Bradner Dancing Plover oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 9 x 7.25 in

Kay Bradner A Team oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 7 x 8 in

Kay Bradner Sunset Plovers oil on paper on aluminum, 2016 26 x 28 in

Kay Bradner Snowy Plovers oil on paper on aluminum, 2016 36 x 48 in

Kay Bradner Dawn in the Rigging oil on paper on aluminum, 2016 15.5 x 16.5 in

Kay Bradner The Light Rises oil on paper on aluminum, 2016 16 x 15 in

Kay Bradner Haven oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 22 x 29 in

Kay Bradner Transparent Wave oil on aluminum, 2017 21.5 x 20.5 in

Kay Bradner Waiting oil on aluminum, 2017 21.5 x 20.5 in

Kay Bradner Brothers oil on aluminum, 2016 22 x 26 in

Kay Bradner Two to One oil on aluminum, 2017 30 x 40 in

Kay Bradner Fitted Sheets oil on aluminum, 2017 30 x 45.5 in

Kay Bradner Stripping Wallpaper oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 22.5 x 30 in

Kay Bradner Newton’s Cradle oil on paper on aluminum, 2017 28.5 x 30.5 in

Kay Bradner Born 1947, Walpole, Massachusetts

2001

Education

1999

1972

BA: Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR

1975

MFA: California College of Arts and

1997

Crafts, Oakland, CA

CA “visualizing” Bradford Smock gallery, San Francisco, CA

“What kind of Fractal is a Duck?”

Emmie Smock gallery, San Francisco, CA “Paintings”

1995

Le Petit Cafe, San Francisco, CA

1991

Syd Entel Gallery, Safety Harbor, FL

2017 Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA “Haven”

1990

Harvard Coop, Cambridge, MA

2012

WHRC Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1988

Nancy Teague Gallery, Seattle, WA

“Ducks and Dogs”

1975

Isabelle Percy West Gallery, Oakland, CA

Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA

1973

Burnet Gallery, Amherst, MA

Solo Exhibitions

2011

“fluid mechanics”

2011 Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA 2009

2016

Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA

“Tender Observation” 2008

Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA

“Aloft” 2006

CA “one painter, one poet” with Kathy

Evans, poet 2005

CFA Gallery, San Anselmo, CA “Afloat”

2005

Women’s Health Resource Center,

San Francisco, CA

2004

Atrium Gallery, Marin General Hospital,

“Water & Boats, Memories & Metaphors”

San Francisco Center for the Book, San Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA “The Art of the Book”

2005

Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Introductions”

2005

Francisco, CA “Water Paper Stone” 2014

Corte Madera, CA

Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA “Liquid”

2014

“boats as metaphors for healing”

Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA “#WishYouWereHere”

2014

Institute of Health & Healing, San Francisco,

Seager Gray Gallery, Mill Valley, CA “Terra Cognita”

2015

Sue Greenwood Fine Art, Laguna Beach, CA “Chill”

2015

Donna Seager Gallery, San Rafael, CA “Unfurled”

2006

“color studies”

Group Exhibitions

“On Water”

Institute of Health & Healing, San Francisco,

Charles Campbell Gallery, San Francisco, CA “looking back, stepping forward”

2003

Women’s Cancer Resource Center, Oakland, Collections CA “animal art”

2000

Maxwell Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1999

Gallery Concord, Concord, CA

Portland Museum of Art, Portland, OR Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts,

“Print Variations on a Musical Theme” 1998

San Francisco, CA

Atrium Gallery, San Francisco, CA “Home

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,

Front” 2 person with Christine Hanlon 1994

San Francisco, CA

Le Petit Cafe, San Francisco, CA “Impromptu” featuring collaborative book

Teaching 1991-1997 San Francisco Art Institute,

with Headlands group: Charles Hobson,

San Francisco, CA -etching

Kathy Evans & Tom Centolella 1993

1995 Urban School, San Francisco, CA

Edith Caldwell Gallery, San Francisco, CA

high school - etching & drawing

“Artists’ Self Portraits in Black & White” 1992

West Side Gallery, Berkeley, CA

1985

Euphrat Gallery, Cupertino, CA

1976-1979 California College of Arts & Crafts,

1985 Pratt, New York City, NY “Pratt Annual Printmaking Competition”

honorable mention

Euphrat Gallry, Cupertino, CA “Printers as Artists”

1974

SFMOMA, (group show)”six printmakers”, San Francisco, CA

1974

Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR “Oregon Artists Under 35”

1974

Silvermine Artists Guild, New Caanan, CT “10th National Print Exhibition”

graphic arts photography

1998

“60th Annual Print Show” , 1983

Residency

1984 The Print Club, Philadelphia, PA

Oakland, CA - etching & photo etching 1979 University of California at Davis, Davis, CA -

“Face to Face”

Moulin de Pilande Basse, Plaissance, France