Bradley Alderson
Maurice O’Riordan
Bradley Alderson, War of Love
Gay pride sounds an intimate, classical chord in Bradley Alderson’s series, War of Love, an endearingly honest narrative of the artist’s first gay relationship–doomed but impassioned—recreated through cursive text and abstracted images of a naked white male (perhaps representing Bradley’s ex), bare surrounds and emblematic flora (frangipani-strong) in soft decay. Shown as part of Campsites at Darwin’s Pride Festival, Alderson’s black and white vignettes, cleaved from an art journal (16 pages, A5), portray a raw sensitivity and subtle sophistication, bringing a fresh feel to a potent though often over-wrought genre.
Alderson’s Aboriginality offers a distinctly local, cross-cultural take on sexuality and underpins the acute social, subversive agency of photography. A student at Charles Darwin (formerly Northern Territory) University, Alderson recently debuted in PICA’s annual national graduate show, Hatched. War of Love confirms him as a promising young talent.
See review of Campsites.
RealTime issue #57 Oct-Nov 2003 pg. 4
