Brad Birchett Art

Once Was: Lama Mountain, Taos, NM

2012-01-07T13:46:00.005-05:00

Once Was is a land art project, a sequence of events that is in continuum. It begins with movements within a place, a place of art action and invitation, and the visual goal is the placement of a simple environmental installation made with a white "farmer's wife" dress from the mid 20th century. The series began (Site-Seer: Transformation) in 2004 with the placement of these installations at various places along the east coast derived from storytelling by my mom and her sister ...

Thanks to the generosity of the directors of Herekeke (an incredible artists' retreat on Lama Mountain NM), Liliana and Peggy, for inviting me and allowing me to transform while investigating the beauty and magic of Lama Mountain. Lama Mountain is in the Sangre de Cristo mountain range, at the southern base of the Rockies.

Sacred Mountain, Taos Pueblo

Pueblo Horses

Lama Mountain is just north of the Taos Pueblo, outside of Taos NM.

The work begins with the best and hardest part ... finding the site for the installation.

This is where the searching, hiking, scrambling, and at times danger begins ...

It is good to have good friends ...

Relic and ritual are part of the process, content and context ...

The sites are usually on borders - in the Taos mountains land and water rites are one in the same, fiercely guarded and shared.

This place centered around an old cistern, no longer in use, but the relics of the community defined its purpose and importance ...

This was where the site was meant to be ... and so the dress was installed ...

Brad Birchett, Once Was: Lama Mountain New Mexico, 2011

[period objects installed within specific places - ongoing]

Earth and Time Video

2011-03-21T22:37:00.000-04:00

One month after the installation, snow is gone, but in Tulsa the wind is ever-present ....

Earth and Time

2011-02-09T12:03:00.023-05:00

Earth and Time -- intermedia exhibition by Brad Birchett, Myers Gallery, Living Arts of Tulsa, Tulsa OK -- February 2011

Opening Reception Feburary 11, 5-9pm -- Brady Street Art District

Brad Birchett, Once Was: Stove Pipe Hill, Tulsa OK, 2011
[Land art project for Earth and Time exhibition]

"It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function."

Walter Benjamin

The process and the work become the same ... in the end we are left with the physical heap, or the outcome of the art making process.

-- Thanks to Steve Liggett at Living Arts for a wonderful experience in art and SURVIVAL (Largest Blizzard/Snowfall in History of Tulsa!) -- We hiked through drifts and mounds of snow to make art happen & the whole experience was incredible! -- for MORE INFO click here: http://www.livingarts.org/myers.htm

See also the article in Urban Tulsa Weekly ...

New Works

2010-02-08T12:08:00.002-05:00

Interval 01, intermedia - mixed media, 2009-

(click on image for enlargement)

Here I use a rhythm of layerings - photo images from previous projects, mixed media on wallboard, paint, paper, oil, tape, vinyl lettering, etc ... the pieces are removed from the wall and mounted on panels ...

(This installation is presently in the Studio Montclair Departures exhibition)

Interval 03, intermedia - mixed media, 2009

Interval 02 - (01 detail) ....

Interval 04 - (03 detail) ...

Inteval 05, intemedia - mixed media, 2009

Ritual Function - Installation View

This is a collection of stones from various rivers and waters in Rappahannock County, Virginia. The stones are eventually returned to their original sources ... and the collection is done again, repeating the physical and ritual movement. The piece was recentlyin an exhibition titled The Object at Univeristy of Mary Washington, Ridderhof Gallery, curator: Laura Tenakjian ... (click on the selection below to hear the accompanying sound art piece from the installation)

Ritual Function: Time & Space from Brad Birchett on Vimeo.

Ritual Function: Time and Space / Earth and Time, video of installation with sound art piece (in homage to Robert Smithson's video The Spiral Jetty, taken from a helecopter with commentary).

Entropy, found objects

Everyday Existence, docu-photography of 1 year event

Alley Sites, docu-photography of an art-walk mapping alleyways

Formation, found objects and bailing wire from - Italy, 1945 - a series of environmental installations, interventions, and documentation.

Urban Renewal I, formal-narrative paintings in multiples, one of a two part grid-series

Urban Renewal, detail

Urban Renewal, detail

Sound Art

2010-02-05T10:26:00.007-05:00

Once Was (originally "Event: Earth and Time") from Brad Birchett on Vimeo.
This piece is presently installed at Morehead State University, Claypool-Young Gallery in an exhibition titled No New Tale To Tell ...
Once Was is a clip from a sound art piece that was originially documentation for an interventive installation placed at various sites along the east coast ... The series continues to change over time ...

2009 Painting

2009-12-22T13:37:00.007-05:00

Click on image for larger view ....

Brad T. Birchett, Tableu Circle, mixed media on canvas, 48x45", 2009

Brad T. Birchett, Dolmen Libra, mixed media on canvas, 48x41", 2009

Brad T. Birchett, Urban Renewal, mixed media on mounted rag papers, 31x35", 2009 -- multiple

For more artwork see my full blog site at: http://www.bradbirchettart.blogspot.com/

Gehäuse Untergeschoss (part II)

2009-03-21T19:12:00.019-04:00

Gehäuse Untergeschoss

March 7 - March 29

2009

What an incredible experience I had in Dusseldorf. The privaledge was to exhibit with these 4 incredible Künstlers (artists) ... Thanks to Kai, Pirko, Thomas, and Evangelos ...

The opening for the show was great - many collectors and art reps were there, along with family, friends, and many, many, incredible artists like my new freund Lutz Fritsch. See a walk-through of the exhibit below ...

Gehäuse Untergeschoss

Brad Birchett, Site Seer, Entropy, and Existence, 2009

Thomas May, Installation and Docu-Photography, 2009

Evangelos Papadopoulos, Funnel For Your Souls, 2009

Pirko Schroder, Industrial Vent: Light Box, 2009

Kai Richter, Material-Site Installation, 2009

See below for more info on the show, the artists, and the exhibition.

Gehäuse Untergeschoss

2009-02-26T17:06:00.020-05:00

Gehäuse Untergeschoss

March 7 - March 29

Philara Sammlung Gallery

New Works by:

Brad Birchett
Thomas May
Evangelos Papadopoulos
Kai Richter
Pirko Schroder

Opening: Saturday, March 7th, 7:00 pm

Exhibition: March 7 - March 29

Hours: Saturday-Sunday 3:00 - 6:00 pm

Telephone for special viewing: 01771469436, 017661151253

Walzwerk Street 14
40599 Düsseldorf

This exhibition will continue to Nuremburg in Fall 2009 ... See you there ...

Ritual Function: Earth and Time

2009-01-10T19:23:00.011-05:00

This exhibition opened Jan 6th 2009 at the Walker Fine Art Center and runs through Feb 28th. Kelly Lonergan, the Visual Art Professor and gallery Director at Woodberry Forest was incredible, as were all the students. It was refreshing talking to these guys, some of whom were pursuing art as a career and others art enthusiasts ... See the images from the show below ....

And a little video I made ... Earth & Time: Stone Cairn The audio is the same audio piece that plays from the bottom of the cairn ... ... its a bit "noisy" but that's what you get when you make a video w/ your camera ...

Thanks to Kelly and Woodberry Forest (see "News")....

And the Orange (VA) County Review ...

Objects of Art

2008-12-02T20:30:00.007-05:00

Ritual Function

"It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function." -- Walter Benjamin

A few years ago I began a series of environmental works investigating the relationship of art to time and decay. The series began as performative interventions and collections from open areas and natural settings. The destinations for these sites were pre-determined from stories passed down to me by my mother and aunts – tales of travel and strange events from their past.

The secondary art pieces resulting from these interventions are a combination of documentation, audio, collections, and objects in multiples and combined – all as layers over time.

Urban Renewal II

2008-10-05T13:19:00.020-04:00

Urban Renewal - 10/08 - Now the piece or project has grown to about 53 parts - 5x7" paintings inspired by formal elements of nature but also by the ritualistic and rythmic act of walking the grid of alleyways of my neighborhood ... and of course, with my rescue shepherd Luka. See the first Urban Renewal entry below for more info and images of the first pieces. Above is a grid of 24. The piece continues to grow over time ... created from a piece of history - damaged paintings on paper from the Shockoe Bottom Studio Fire of 1997 (wow, 11 years ago!). These pieces were cut from the saved yet un-restorable paintings on paper left from the fire - re-painted with new and current ideas, formal elements, repetitive motion, and with an overall sense of social equality. See below for a few more details ...

(See the Vanderbilt University show for other ritual-egalite-grid pieces)

Bio-Art - Painting & Mix Media

2008-10-01T21:02:00.002-04:00

Click on image to see enlargement ...

Brad Birchett, Pomegranite for the People, 41 x 48", 2006

Tea, detritus, pomegranite seeds, natural carbon charcoal, etc ... all working together with acrylic paint on a panel. The paint is non-active but at times serves as a base ... for other elements to work within .... you can NOT keep them away ...

Brad Birchett, xSublimex, 45x62", 2005 Tea and coffee continue to alter the molecular makeup of the canvas, as micro-infestations will eventually eat it all away ....

Brad Birchett, Site Seer 03: The Bleu Grotto, Ontario, Canada, 2004

Microorganisms eat away at natural materials such as cotton, as does entropy over time, while freeze-thaw breaks down ceramic compounds returning the earth to earth, and of course, most omnivores love local apples ...

Bio-art has been defined as "an art practice in which the medium is living matter" - Wikipedia. In these pieces organic matter has been used and allowed to "grow" or flourish in certain areas. Matter such as coffee, tea, and even detritus has long been used as staining agents but in certain climates micro-organisms will invade these substances ... and well, the process is definately an on-going aesthetic and molecular (if not olfactory) change ....
See more Bio-Art pieces in the Ritual Function exhbition and within the Transformation series where installations are left to endure climate ... and molecular change ...

2008-09-29T12:54:00.001-04:00

Ana Mendieta

Urban Renewal

2008-09-18T22:20:00.006-04:00

A grid of small paintings, each 7" x 5", hung together to form a multiple ...

Urban Renewal is a series of painting-pieces on mounted paper hung together to form one art-piece, created from discarded paintings, paintings in a state of decay, paintings saved from a fire ... The work is a continuum of my series entitled Ritual Function, after a theory by Walter Benjamin:

It is significant that the existence of the work of art with reference to its aura is never entirely separated from its ritual function.
Walter Benjamin
“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Brad T. Birchett, Urban Renewal, mixed media on mounted paper - grid, 2008

Urban Renewal: A re-accountment of the visual and physical experience of walking, within a grid of formal-expressionist painting parts. Here are a few details ...

This multiple-piece will be hung, in its present state, mirrored to another piece, Action to Object, in the Other exhibition curated by Rob Tarbell at The Piedmont Virginia Community College Gallery in Charlottesville, opening April 25th ... See the review of the OTHER exhibition at PVCC in The Hook, by Laura Parsons ...

Brad Thomas Birchett, Action to Object, installation with bench, stone cairn, and audio, 2006

For more DECAY - RENEWAL - RITUAL - ENTROPIC behavior see the Transformation work that was up at Vanderbilt University last year: HERE ....

Conceptual Performative Interventive Moving Image = Time

2008-04-01T11:52:00.008-04:00

My New YouTube Playlist ....

Letter to Heather

2008-03-13T10:23:00.006-04:00

Oh, and I had an intense dream-vision that my mother crossed a road and went under a tree and laid in a puddle and turned into a dirt mound w/ moss and the puddle was gone and then just behind where she had been there was a little cat graveyard and the cats were slightly uncovered with their paws and heads pointing skyward and when I touch a paw it crumbled and felt like that cream candy-bar nougat that is in the middle of a Halvah bar ....

B.....

(Above image: Grounded by Heather Gray, 2008)

Mail Art Collaboration

2008-03-12T09:10:00.027-04:00

Stacie and I were art-partners in the early 90's within another group called The Post Card Club. Every month we would make postcards and send each of the 9 members a card plus one unsuspecting person a card - the person was chosen by a different member each month and that person would receive 9 hand made post cards from unknown sources. (Mine went to my Philosophy professor at Virginia Tech - Dr. Joe Pitt.)

Champe Smith is now resurrecting The Postcard Club and generously including us in the upcoming exhibition Mapping Correspondence: Mail Art in the 21st Century opening April 11th at The Center for Book Arts in Chelsea.

Here are some images that came of Stacie and my collaboration ....

SANTA LUKA X02

We began with the idea that some people choose to have babies, and others choose to have dogs (we are of the latter) and how the "business" of being the "good" parent has become big - just look at all the silly "toys" out there for both!!!

SANTA LUKA X01

We are also interested in the amount of photos we receive every year at Christmas of our friends kids - its amazing to see them grow up from one photo a year - needless to say some of our friends are distant, and we don't see them as much as we would like ....

POSTCARD X01 (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

POSTCARD X01 BACK

I've always liked the greater than or equal to symbol ... and concept ... so we used it to speak about how we feel about our rescue-shepherd - Luka. Stacie did the drawings because she hasn't been ruined by art school ... I did the cut-n-paste and photo manipulation ...

POSTCARD X02 (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

This image was the front of the second card - the color image was the front of the first - with opposite images - color montage / pencil drawing - becoming images for the back of each ....
The show is up through the summer and just got a review in ARTFORUM ...

Transformation: Testimony of Existence in Time and Space

2008-03-05T10:55:00.007-05:00

Site-Seer Installation Video

Site Seer from Brad Birchett on Vimeo.

Site Seer Images - Black and White Silver Prints, 8 x 12

Site 01

Site 02

Site 03

Oil vs. Art or You've Got To Be Kidding!!!

2008-02-19T11:26:00.007-05:00

Robert Smithson, The Spiral Jetty, 1970

The date has passed to contact the Utah congressmen to complain about this insidious attack on one of the most infamous and important art pieces of the past century - THE SPIRAL JETTY ... And guess what -- I didnt even make the deadline, which was Feb 13th!!! Yes, like many, like even my students, I had the date in my "head" as Feb 22nd .... Too busy I guess .... (yes, that same old excuse) .... !#%#$^@$^$%^

But why not go ahead and send those guys an email and let them know that you care? Check out the NOW REPUBLIC article and link to these guys' emails .... Let them know that Pearl Montana Exploration and Production, LTD - from Canada (now that just blows on all fronts) - has no right to drill so close to a national monument (well, it SHOULD be!) that is also a symbol of "American" freedom, art, Earth, indigenous awareness, and well, anti-manifest destiny!!! Not only will these "exploration boreholes" disrupt the color, elevation, and floor-base of the beautiful Great Salt Lake it will also disrupt an important migratory bird ecosystem ... Now is the time to make it all STOP ... How long can this over zealous, money mongering, tight-assed society that the Bush's have reigned over keep tearing away at the earth and our art, = OUR FREEDOM ... ??? ALSO: SEE DIA ART SEE THE NEW YORK TIMES OPINION SEE THE DAILY HERALD AND THERE ARE SOME GREAT LINKS AND STORY ON TREE HUGGER

ArtStuff

2008-02-18T12:25:00.013-05:00

If you have not seen this show you really should ...

FANATIC by Jillian McDonald ...

@ 1708Gallery / 319 W. Broad St. / Richmond, VA ....

Jillian proposes the artist as celebrity obsessor -- walking the line between voyer, stalker, or artist interested in jamming the culture -- ideas of the comodity of desire ....

See Jillian's Billy Bob Site for a walk through ... Billy Bob obsessions and the power of the female in general .... And for more info see the Screen Kiss site ...

And the article from the New York Times in 2006 tells it ALL !!!

AND SEE GINGER SPIVEY'S REVIEW IN THE MAY/JUNE EDITION OF ART PAPERS ...

Artist & Writers ... and other things ...

2007-08-08T17:11:00.009-04:00

These are some images from the ARTISTS AND WRITERS Exhibition from last April. This exhibition was curated by Kathryn Shaw-Sweeney at Flippo Gallery, Randolph Macon College. (click on image for enlargement)

Brad Thomas Birchett; The Everyday Act of Exhistence; photo-documenation (18, 8x12" silver geletin prints) of environmental intervention, audio; 2007

In this installation I worked with the idea/theme of story telling, building a narrative over time. I recorded my evening practice of throwing a stick for my dog, Luka. A repetative, physical, and learning experience that I work on every day..

... A detail of the installation.

... another detail.

... and another.

Included is an audio piece created from the every-day sounds that happened during the interventions. These pieces were hand-edited and dubbed by my friend Johnny Hott. At the gallery there were also stacks of cards so people could have something ...

On the back of the cards were various segments of a short story by my wife, Stacie ... an epitaph she wrote for our other dog, Zuzu.

See Artist & Writers review by Christina Esposito: Read Into It

Please see also: Plant Zero Exhibition ... Matter of Time

AND, the Vanderbilt Exhibition ... Rubberneckers

2007-06-19T22:46:00.000-04:00

G. Roy Levine, Director of MFA in Visual Arts, Vermont College ~2001

Vanderbilt Exhibition - A Walking Tour by Curator Jodi Hays

2007-05-07T14:40:00.000-04:00

Vanderbilt Rubberneckers Exhibition

2007-05-06T21:54:00.000-04:00

CLICK IMAGES TO SEE THE SUPER ENHANCED VERSION

After driving 9 hrs installing the artwork for the Rubberneckers exhibition at Vanderbilt was easy ... especially when you have a great curator like Jodi, who dosnt mind climbing ladders ... and of course my assistant & companion ... Estaci ...

The show looked great, the spacing and laying out of the show was what really made it work. Although there were 9 artists/groups showing, there was a perfect amount of space and rhythm between the works to allow them to ebb and flow ... This rhythm of negative space is what made the show both cohesive and the works all relative to the curatorial statement, which was about movement, voyeurism, and how "lookers" sometime get in the way ...

Gleaning Time & Alley Sites Installation ...

Jake Galle's corn field (in back) next to my found object & photo installation ...

Shea Craig & Yvonne Swanson's Most Beautiful Thing interactive web-based piece ... with Victoria Burge's prints as the visual entry ... and there's Jake's corn-art again!!!

Paula Booth's urban paintings & Erika Wollam Nichols' 58 minute video of Shelby Creek Reservoir ...

The rest of Erika's piece - The Trash Mandala - trash found around the same Reservoir

This Must Be the Place's collaborative performative interventive piece a la Bob Ross mentorship video - A Pretty Nice Painting ...

Tania Kupczak's interactive audio piece - the sound of snow ...

... and back to the beginning. The battery in my camera ran out so I don't have an image of Larry Caveney's incredible video of 2 girls fighting at a gallery - arm wrestling actually - or of John Calley's drawings of cars & people -- done with a bit of motor oil ... Nashville is great and Jodi ROCKS!!!

Nuclear Venus and Nest Ring

2007-05-01T18:10:00.000-04:00

These are a couple of paintings that were in the Disrobed exhibition at Gallery 5 in Richmond. This exhibitions was last June and the painters were hung in the midst of beautiful peformative works that spoke of co-existance of industry and nature.

Brad Thomas Birchett, Nuclear Venus or Cest Le Vie, ~ 45 x 49, 2005-2007

Brad Thomas Birchett, Nest: Ring, 82 x 55, 2005

Nuclear Venus or Cest Le Vie and her ilk can be seen at Gallery 5, the Disrobed 2 exhibition, June - July 2007.

This Is Brad's Blog ...

2007-04-03T15:12:00.000-04:00

Believe me I AM going to get a Web Page one day ...

A couple of years ago I decided to make art both in and out of my studio - out as in outside ... on the earth, as in Earth Art (See Robert Smithson, Ana Mendieta, etc), but at the same time I never stopped painting ... I considered artmaking as seasonal ...

Here I am washing a stone for my Action to Object installation. In this installation I have a stone cairn juxtaposed to a series of 12 average sized formal paintings. Behind the cairn and facing the paintings at an angle is an old cement bench (see below). To the side are 24 small panels, docu-photographs, on the wall - images from the Alley Sites intervention ...

In the photo-painting above I have juxtaposed myself in front of my 2 German Shepherds ... Later, the shepherd on the left, Zuzu, dies, as the one on the right, Luka, becomes the fixation of my newest eco-enviro-intervention, The Everyday Act of Existence, which can be seen at Randolph-Macon College, Flippo Gallery, Artists & Writers, February 18 thru April 20, 2007 ...

As part of the Artists & Writers exhibition you are invited to the Reading, 3:00 pm, April 15th, Randolph-Macon College, Topping Room of the Old Chapel, with a reception to follow in the gallery ...

Pomegranate for the People / Matter of Time Exhibition

2007-03-30T19:30:00.000-04:00

Matter of Time exhibition / Plant Zero Art Center / October 2006

Pomegranate for the People / Matter of Time exhibition

Pomegranate for the People, detail

What makes this piece bio, as in bio-art, is mostly about the pomegranate seeds ... There may be some green tea here, but my friend Marlene brought pomegranates to the studio one day when she and Curtis were working on a mural project. I was using "gifts" and found material in my work in those days ... Did you know that after you pop a pomegranate seed and let the juice sit on a panel the next day it is bleu ... as in blue the color??

N=Nan + Wireforms / Matter of Time Exhibition

2007-03-30T19:16:00.000-04:00

This painting always seems to work best with the wire forms. The wire forms were from an environmental installation I did at Vermont College in Montpelier Vermont. I hung old Army shirts with inverted wine bottles equiped with small tubes that allowed the wine to drip slowly onto the snow (always about 2-4 feet in February). When it was done, I felt as if the wire forms themselves were the best part of the piece, and began re-making them in multiples - thanks to Megan ...

Megan Mueller, Hair on the Shower Floor, Welded Iron Rod, Life Size, VCU Sculpture Department, 2007

This Is an Artist Named Heather ...

2007-03-29T13:29:00.001-04:00

This is my friend, Heather Gray's, newest photography. Heather is in the newest version of Maternal Metaphors, a traveling group exhibition curated by Jennie Klein and including other artists such as Mary Kelly, Ellen McMahon, Barbara T. Smith, and Sarah Webb. These exhibitions question "the hegemonic representation of motherhood as an institution" as the artists "explore their ambivalence about becoming mothers."

For me, Heather's work is exciting because it's current, while at the same time her process, secondary subject matter, and colorization have a flavor of the 70's. This is what makes Heather's work Kick-Ass across the board - narrative, taboo, photo-cryptic, and formal.