Galerie Pompom

19 January – 13 February 2022

The title of Jess Bradford’s solo exhibition Moon on Water takes its inspiration from an old East Asian proverb ‘Mirror Flower, Water Moon’. Much like the slipperiness of time and memory, the proverb itself is also hard to pin down. Perhaps one can think of it as the unattainability of something, it can be seen but not touched, like a flower’s reflection in a mirror or the way that the moon shines upon the surface of the water. What we see in those reflections is a mere copy, a mirage. Taking this metaphor of a reflection Bradford has created a new suite of ceramics and miniature paintings that engage with the many layers of memory and representation.

Excerpt from Talia Smith catalogue essay