MLitt Fine Art Practice School of Fine Art

David Bridgeman

 

“Art and work and art and life are very connected and my whole life has been absurd. There isn’t a thing in my life that has happened that hasn’t been extreme – personal health, family, economic situations…absurdity is the key word.”

 

Eva Hesse

 

My artworks tell stories, evoke memories and offer a sense of place to the viewer. Using a variety of media, the stories told are fictional and evolve from an event, an object or an experience. Found objects, texts or observations may give life to an idea. Books, toys and games are often used as vehicles to carry these narratives.

 

I build models of dream-like structures – uninhabitable buildings with unexplained openings. Packaging material, cardboard boxes and a wealth of other recycled materials are used. The structures are developed and tested using drawing, painting and printmaking.

 

Stories are fundamental to the works I create and their visual impact is important in conveying these narratives. Colourful scenarios depicting fairground or carnival imagery and text arouse feelings of fear and excitement. Red and white stripes signify joy and fear, referencing the barber’s pole, a nod to the darker origins of bloodletting. Artworks are rooms with hidden passages, inviting entrances, holes to unknown depths. Faceless figures of antiquity, paired with brightly coloured figurines, conjure a sense of magic and mysticism.

 

Humour and the often-chaotic senselessness of life are present here.  The viewer is left to ponder the blurred lines between truth, fiction and reality. The work creates a clear and balanced understanding of a changing world, offering the viewer one solution to the abundance of absurdities presented to us socially and politically in our contemporary life.

Contact
Davidbridgeman345@gmail.com
D.bridgeman1@student.gsa.ac.uk
@david.bridgeman
Works
Degree Show – Sallies
Degree Show – Sally’s Sticks
Degree Show – Screen Prints
Degree Show 3D Constructions
Degree Show MLitt Fine Art Practice 2024 – Installation View

Degree Show – Sallies

Dyed plaster, glass wax, dyed jesmonite, bees wax, acrylic finisher, mild steel

Sally Blue

Fallen and yellow

Perch

Red white and glass

Rubber Sally

Sally Ancient on stand

Sally Ancient on stand

Sally Ancient

Sally Black and white

Sally Blue with stand

Sally Fallen

Sally Glass

Sally red white and black

Sally Two Tone

Sally white and red

Degree Show – Sally’s Sticks

Sally's Sticks

Set of six coloured jesmonite

Degree Show – Screen Prints

Edition of 5

For One Night Only

The Louder You Scream

Screen print, hand painted acrylic

Degree Show 3D Constructions

3D constructions built from screen printed balsawood, plywood, mixed media and mounted on 10mm, French cleated plywood shelving.

Bring Her Home

Bring Her Home (detail 1) jpeg

Bring Her Home (detail 3).

Today Full Toss

Mixed media, screen printed balsawood, plywood french cleat shelving

House For a Mouse

House For a Mouse (detail 2)

House For a Mouse (detail 3)

Sally's Land.

Screen printed birch ply and balsawood

Sally's Land (detail 1)

Sally's Land (detail 2)

Sally's Land (detail 3)

Degree Show MLitt Fine Art Practice 2024 – Installation View

Installation views from the degree show exhibition held at the Glasgow School of Art, Stow Building, August 23rd – 29th, 2024.

Sally's Land Install View

Sallys Land Install View 2

Sally's Land Install View 3