Two-person exhibit includes fanciful 'visual conversations'

Published: July 6, 2008

NORMAN — Delicate, classical oriental brushwork paintings by Beverly Herndon almost perfectly complement the fanciful ink drawings of C. J. Bradford in a show at Firehouse Art Center, 444 S Flood.

A bamboo grove provides "Sanctuary” in one ink-watercolor drawing on rice paper by Herndon, and a mountainous landscape offers a seated old man (and us) a place for "Contemplation” in another.

Even more excellent and evocative is her ink and watercolor rendering of a snowy landscape and misty peak, or suggestion of one, on a "Wintry Day” — a near masterpiece.

A woman looks out over a waterfall flowing through a mountain landscape that may echo her "Emptiness,” and a man walks beside "The Bubbling Brook” in two more superb works by Herndon.

Calligraphy seems to express the thoughts of a robed, seated man holding a scroll or flute, "Resting in the Bamboo Garden,” while four calligraphic figures express something "Beyond Words” in two other works.

"Oriental brushwork painting is a fundamental philosophy viewing the relationship between the human being and the universe,” said Herndon, a Norman artist.

"It is a spiritual relationship that is difficult to express: empty, yet full,” she said.

Bradford describes his pen-and-ink compositions as "visual conversations” with the viewer, visual puns, and puzzles with more than one solution, based on his imagination, symbols or Bible stories.

One must look hard for the can of vegetables concealed by a welter of other objects in a light-hearted, deftly executed ink drawing by Bradford called "Dreams, Beams and a Can of Lima Beans,” for example.

A white hand is outlined by a field of specks on the ground and a dark hand print emerging from a vegetal-figurative-architectural form seems to be reaching for the sky in Bradford's "Handscape.”

A frog holds up a scale on which a 200-pound-man (reaching for a tiny "home key”) exactly matches the total weight of his wife, baby and child in a fantasy landscape Bradford calls "Family in the Balance.”

A bridge crosses the chasm between a series of elongated towers in Bradford's "Bridges or Fortresses,” and a ladder, watched over by an owl on a stack of books, suggests an "Ascent by Wisdom” in another work.

Offering a nice change of pace is Bradford's much less intricate and obsessive "Sea Scape” of a white wave breaking dramatically at night in the green-shaded ocean.

An artist for more than 30 years whose work has been seen in arts festivals throughout the United States, Bradford is a former Norman resident who lives in Flower Mound, Texas.

The Herndon-Bradford two-person show remains on view through July 25.

Hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

— John Brandenburg

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