Details:

This painting treats a table's surface as a theater for presenting artifacts and props from an offstage cast of characters. In this composition, the artist explores the "marginalia of an existence defined by art-making and aging."
Unframed

① Artwork:

Tablescape on Maintenance

This painting is part of the artist's series Tablescapes—exploring the expansive space of a single surface. The word is a portmanteau invented by the interior design industry for referring to decorative centerpieces, primarily in a domestic setting. In this suite of paintings, however, the artist uses the tables' surfaces as a theater for presenting artifacts and props from an offstage cast of characters. The works in this series bridge the artist’s parallel series of large, multi-figure compositions with his intimate, smaller canvases focused on a singular notion. Biancardi is a visual storyteller whose exploration of narrative spans various media but always incorporates drawing and frequently incorporates humor.

About these works, curator Colin Ross says: "The menagerie of objects—a martini, broken glasses, a partially opened letter, a half-disrobed sock—imply the existence of human figures stretching in and out of the scenes from the fringes. [These] four Tablescapes...find Biancardi considering the marginalia of an existence defined by art-making and aging."

Specs:

30 inches
31 inches

③ Artist:

Bradley Biancardi

Bradley Biancardi is a visual storyteller whose work encompasses painting, drawing and printmaking. The artist’s work explores human relationships and their everyday rituals in theatrical scenes that combine humor with the uncanny. Biancardi employs drawing as the basis of all his work and draws influence from narratives across a range of mediums and genres.

BIO:

Bradley Biancardi was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1977. The artist received a BFA from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana in 2001. Biancardi also studied at Syracuse University in Florence, Italy in 1998 and was a research assistant at the Art Institute of Chicago’s Museum Education Department in 2001.

Solo exhibitions of Biancardi’s work have taken place at: Arts+Leisure Gallery in New York City (2019); Johalla Projects in Chicago, Illinois (2016); and the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Illinois (2012).

Group exhibitions that have shown Biancardi’s work have taken place at: Freight+Volume Gallery in New York City; Thierry Goldberg Gallery in New York City; Fresh Window Gallery in New York City; BravinLee Programs in New York City; Devening Projects+Editions in Chicago, Illinois; Roots & Culture in Chicago, Illinois; and Steven Zevitas Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts; among others.

Biancardi has participated in artist residencies at: Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, New York; the Elizabeth Murray Artist Residency by Collar Works in Washington County, New York; the Edward F. Albee Foundation in Montauk, New York; the EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop in New York City; the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida; the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont; and the Religare Arts Initiative in New Delhi, India.

Biancardi has lectured as a visiting artist at: the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York; Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; Columbia University in New York City; Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana; and the University of Chicago in Illinois; among others.

Biancardi’s work has been covered in the publications ArtMaze Mag, New American Paintings, Bad At Sports and Newcity, among others.

Biancardi lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Bradley Biancardi:
Tablescape on Maintenance, 2022
Oil, acrylic, spray paint, and graphite on canvas
31.0 × 30.0 inches /