Artist Bio -Jasmine Bradbury (b 1994) is a British sculptor based in London and Norfolk. She graduated with first class honours in Fine Art at Norwich University of Art (2015). She has previously exhibited at the Anteros Gallery (solo) in Norwich, Waveney Valley Sculpture Trail in Suffolk and Fieldworks Gallery in London. Jasmine’s work explores notions of the self through formations of objects and materials of familiar origin. Working primarily with large sculptural forms, her work is often based on feminized interpretations of life incidents. Jasmine is currently developing a series of tabletop sculptures, exploring the combination of sculpture in an interior environment. Jasmine has been exploring materials that reflect her expanding sculptural vocabulary since working in bronze casting foundries in London and Suffolk (London Bronze Casting, Cox London and Brian Alabaster Foundry) over the last 7 years.
1 - Could you explain your practice? Only you know why you do what you do.
Jasmine Bradbury Mould Making and Casting, based in East London and Norfolk offering a service to create silicone moulds with a jesmonite or fibre glass cases. These moulds enable sculptors to reproduce their work into multiple casts of their sculpture in a variety of materials. Other services available include casting and finishing artists' work in jesmonite and resin, as well as assisting to facilitate bronze casting. I have worked for 7 years in bronze casting foundries and have picked up many techniques and skills, which have enabled me to develop my own practice. I have cast lead and bronze sculptures which have been exhibited in London and Suffolk.
My sculptures depict the delicate or strong, malleable or rigid, comforting or banal. My sculptures are full of contradictions in both materiality and form. Representing life’s unknown trajectory, the forms and materials work side by side to explore feelings of stability and instability. In utilising industrial materials with minimal and natural colourations, like plaster, lead and resin. I have used forms such as the pillow, bath or mattress that juxtaposes the illusion of domestic familiarities to then relate it back to the self. I have now begun to create a series of tabletop jesmonite sculptures which explore how the fluidity of certain shapes and arrangement of shaped objects can describe a path of a thought or feeling that circulates through your mind and body.
2 - Is art relevant today?
I believe art is very relevant today!! Art in all its forms is incredibly important as a viewer, it allows the audience to connect with another stream of consciousness and make you think and reflect in a way you might not have thought possible. Art is also important to the creative making their art. It allows a form of expression and escapism from the everyday. The artistic expression is another form of language in which to demonstrate a state of mind or narrative.
Over my career I have worked with many different types of artists and find it incredibly interesting how an artist is able to create a completely unique form of art as no one can create the same piece - yes it can be possible for people to copy but it will never be the same as the original.
3 – We are always asked what other artists influence us, we want to know what art you don’t like, and which influences you?
I am influenced by material development; my job allows me to constantly come across new textures or ways of creating forms. I get a lot of influence from visiting exhibitions, even if I don’t ‘like’ what I have viewed I can add that to the development of my own practice.
A recent visit to the Isamu Noguchi exhibition at the Barbican inspired me greatly. I found the paper lights hanging alongside a huge arrangement of floor-based sculptures demonstrated how sculpture and interior can work hand in hand. A Noguchi quote has resonated with me, I felt similarity to my own sculptures and how I am drawn to how objects interact with one another and how it can create a type of language like a human body or nature.
‘I was interested in getting a certain plasticity of forms, like something alive – and I wanted it to imply a certain imminent motion. Joints, if possible, were never fixed (no welding) but grooved, held by gravity or tension’ – Isamu Noguchi
I have been a huge fan of Sarah Lucas’ artwork since art school. I recently visited her exhibition – ‘Sex Life’ at the Perimeter Gallery. I find inspiration in how bodily forms are created with everyday materials and arranged into a crude narrative. The familiar objects she uses such as tights, oranges, cigarettes are constructed into a completely new language then to how we recognise them. I am finding it hard to pin down a type of art I don’t like as even if it isn’t to my taste, I always find something to take away from it. For example, figurative sculpture is not anything I would try to make as I have no lust to explore the recreation of a realistic human body. But I appreciate why an artist would want to create this and there is great satisfaction in working out how the body looks when sculpting it. I would take abstractions of this process, for example the way some of Noguchi’s sculpture interact with one another, which reminds me to the joints of a body or two bodies holding one another.
4- If you could go back 10-20 years what would you tell your younger self?
I would tell myself not to worry so much and that my time would come to be able to do what I love. Pressure is a useful tool, but you will learn how to control it. Saying that you will never be in control, and you need to roll with it. Life has a funny way of working its way out.
5 – If you could go forward 10-20 years what do you hope to have done or not done?
I hope to still be developing and creating my own sculptures ranging in size and materials. I would love to create large bronze sculptures to exhibit. I also hope to travel and explore different ways of life, I’ve hardly taken any time to travel as I’ve been very set on learning skills in my field. If I could travel with these skills that would be a bonus. I hope I continue to work in a creative environment surrounded by like-minded people.
