Diving into Mark Bradford’s “Deep Blue”
Color, texture, and terrain are the three words that best describe “Deep Blue”, Mark Bradford’s 50-foot work documenting the destruction in Los Angeles during the 1965 Watts Riots. The scale and intricacy of his work coupled with the simplicity of materials — colored paper, old posters, tape, paint, old newspapers, and magazines — speaks to the necessity of the artist to create, with whatever is available.
Bradford’s skill and vision bring all of these seemingly benign materials together to create intricate visual essays that speak to society, culture, politics, race, and gender in lyrical beauty. His work orders a chaotic, turbulent world, like a conductor of a visual orchestra, where the musicians and instruments are color, texture, and paper. It is a symphony for the eyes.
Deep Blue spans an entire wall at the Broad in downtown Los Angeles. At 50ft long it dwarfs the observer, allowing them to experience the piece from within its oceanic blues and coral-like structures created from painter’s tape and old paper.
Tranquil blues are juxtaposed with fiery red-orange nodules and disks, symbolic of the fires that erupted in Watts during the riots while deep cuts and dark lines represent the turbulence and chaotic nature of the time.
Bradford uses curvilinear and organic forms that are sculpted into the work, some of which exist below the surface, like the grid-like structures carved into yellow paper covered with dark paint. While other structures exist above the surface, like the knobs of wadded paper and tape that protrude one to two inches, some representing hot spots and others a sense of calm.
What’s most striking about the painting is the calming effect of the blues against the visual violence of the cuts, tears, and gouges on its surface. The cuts in many cases are accompanied by dark, linear markings reminiscent of a child’s scribbling, but placed strategically and with purpose. These markings give the painting a frenetic feel, almost vibrating, and imbue the piece with tension.
But it is Bradford’s use of color and composition that unifies and balances the piece. A beautiful, undulating line created by the edge of a dark form that spans all 50 feet of the piece, takes our eye from one end to the other, slowing it down and giving it a place to take a break from the bright red-orange, vibrant blue, and chaotic lines. It is the conductor in this orchestral piece.
Although it is a meditation on a time of great turmoil in Los Angeles (and the nation), Mark Bradford’s, “Deep Blue” can stand on its own on the strength of its composition, color, and line, even without the context of the 1965 riots and this is true in all of his work. He deals with pain, fear, and vulnerability with fluidity, beauty, and grace. “I don’t think beauty lives in a vacuum,” Bradford said in a 2019 talk he gave at the Tate Modern in London. “Nor do I think all pain lives without beauty… they sort of co-exist.”
