Hot & Cold Casting
with Chris Bradley
SCULPTURE 687 001 | 3 credits | $250 Lab Fee
June 9 - 22, 2024
In this class, students will be introduced to a variety of casting techniques including silicone, plaster, rigid and flexible foams, concrete, and aluminum. With these methods artists can explore the opportunities for multiples and realism within sculpture. Demonstrations will introduce students to best practices within cold casting techniques and build toward the molten metal aluminum and bronze pours. After experimenting with them all, students will design and propose a final project utilizing at least one of the featured methods. Students are encouraged to bring items they would like to cast, and to consider foraging in the natural landscape as a source of inspiration. We will review the work of sculptors and installation artists including Liz Magor, Tony Matelli, Rachel Whiteread, Daniel Arsham, and Urs Fischer for inspiration. Working in the open–air metals studio, the class will focus on methods for safe casting. Assignments will invite students to work in response to the natural environment, casting foraged objects, and exploring pattern generation. The class will culminate in a presentation of casted sculptures installed on Ox-Bow's campus.
Chris Bradley is an artist based in Chicago. He has presented his work in solo exhibitions at Ackerman Clarke Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Shane Campbell Gallery, Roberto Paradise, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Raleigh, and has been included in group shows at the Chicago Architecture Biennial 2023, the Renaissance Society, Atlanta Contemporary, Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, the NRW-Forum, and the Elmhurst Art Museum. He received his MFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2010. In 2017, he was the recipient of the Meier Achievement Award. In addition to his studio practice, he is an instructor of sculpture at both SAIC and the University of Chicago. Over the past two decades, Bradley has developed a sculptural language around representation, poetics of ordinary subjects, trompe l’oeil techniques, and exhibition as site for the imagination. He aims to use this creative language to encourage his audience to practice the suspension of disbelief as a method for reconsidering and understanding this shared common world.
Chris Bradley, To Come or To Go, 2021, cast urethane, nickel plated steel, paint, and hardware, 40 x 20 x 12 in