Mark Bradford

Life Size, 2019

Mark Bradford transforms materials scavenged from the street into map-like abstract collages made out of densely layered paper and paint. Life Size is a project that takes the subject of police body cameras and the role of photographs and surveillance footage in the pursuit of justice. The paper mold was created to render the camera itself as a sculpture that rises off the page. Similar to the language of his found sheets of paper, harvested from signs and telephone post advertisements of south LA, the handmade paperwork is layered to form a kind of topography, or a skin. The artist sees the connection between the cameras and human bodies. Within the court of law the footage taken by the body cams can be used to incarcerate individuals. As the artist states, “the consequences of something so small are huge.” To further create a connection between the incarcerated body and that of the camera, the work appears delicate, almost fragile-like, with the paper bubbling in a way that resembles a burn, split in places to reveal the bright red of the camera as if raw flesh underneath.

Written by Jennifer Gerow, first published by Dieu Donné