Flora Bradwell is an artist whose practice spans painting, sculpture, performance, and moving image.
Her work combines carnivalesque humour with grotesque, playful imagery, creating immersive, fantastical worlds that challenge everyday assumptions and explore theatricality, camp, and spectacle.
Flora is one of our Flourish artists, working with families in North Kensington and Brent. This year, she led the “May, Make, Celebrate”, where she guided families to create flower crowns, colourful drums, and a communal banner, culminating in a lively parade through Barham Park.
In this Q&A, Flora shares her artistic practice, motivations, and memorable experiences as a Flourish facilitator. This interview is part of ACAVA’s ongoing series featuring artists from our studio and community network.
Visit this page to read more.
Your name
Flora Bradwell
Your art practice in a few words
Artist with an expanded painting practice that encompasses sculpture, performance and moving image.
Where can we find your work?
Online:
florabradwell.com
@florabradwellart
In person:
Bow Open: Connections at the Nunnery Gallery, London
Tell us a bit about yourself
Generous grotesquery is my go-to; creating carnivalesque worlds in paint and sculpture that drip in equal measure with fun and menace.
I completed an MFA in Painting at the Slade in 2021 and received the Felix Slade Award, Jean Szego Prize and Sarabande Emerging Bursary while there. I recently won the Gilbert Bayes Award and was artist-in-residence at Van Gogh Huis, NL, in 2023.
My work has recently been shown at The Royal Society of Sculptors, Matt’s Gallery and Saatchi Gallery, London, Wakefield Arthouse, Wakefield, Liminal Gallery, Margate and Future DMND, Los Angeles. I also curate exhibitions, art happenings and publications with the likes of ha.lf, Bad Art Presents and the icing room. I teach at the Fine Art Foundation at Kingston School of Art, at Slade Summer School and with children and families at The Royal Academy of Art and Young London Print Prize.
I have a three-year-old son called Beau.
What Flourish programmes have you worked on recently, and what did you do?
Earlier in May, I led “May, Make, Celebrate”. Taking folkloric May Day traditions as our starting point, the group created flower crowns, leaf capes, colourful drums, and a communal banner. We responded directly to the sights and sounds of nature at Barham Park, culminating in a parade where we danced through the park in full regalia, banging our drums.
What interests you about being a Flourish facilitator, and/or has it influenced your practice, or your way of thinking about art?
There is a responsive joy in working collectively. It makes for a more flexible, relaxed, and inventive approach to making. The energetic enthusiasm of the group, who all ‘flourished’ together this May, shone new light on old materials and reminded me of the excitement that working together for a shared moment of performance can bring.
What themes or questions are central to your work right now?
A compulsion towards the carnivalesque, a vibrant trashy aesthetic and the desire to playfully rub the fantastical against the everyday drive my practice. I squeeze cult manifestoes, nursery rhymes and compositions of frescoes through a generously grotesque filter to create dimly recognisable worlds. Camp and theatrics are employed to demonstrate the ridiculousness of patriarchal systems.
What materials do you work with most often, and why?
My work is infused with gossip and bodily dripping. Oversized vagina dentata hybrid characters sing melodies to passers by, their PVC lips glistening. Gigantic knees shimmering with pattern and colour threaten to burst through a gleaming archway. A bearded Medusa’s head hangs from a metal hook, the ping pong eyeballs of each snake fixing you with a crazed stare. These hybrid creatures, sewn from oversaturated fabric or painted gaudily with Rustoleum, are like rides at a disused theme park: familiar, but warped; serving equal measure of fun and menace.
What role does play or experimentation have in your practice?
A day of abject failure in the studio can sometimes turn out to be the opening of a new, exciting door.
Did you study art formally? If so, what did you take from that experience?
I completed a BA in Painting at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2009 and an MFA in Painting at the Slade in 2021. Both experiences allowed me to really appreciate the materiality of paint, exploring traditional techniques, surface preparation and allowing a deeper understanding of the medium. My experiences of Art School really forced me to think critically about my practice, to explore the historical and contemporary contexts of fine art and bring that to bear on the work I make. I also made some truly delightful friends.
What’s a dream project or collaboration you’d love to do?
In lockdown, I was lucky enough to collaborate with LIPPS choir on a three-part harmony song-scape that was installed in oversized vagina dentata hybrid sculptures. LIPPS were enthusiastic, generous and open and working with them brought such a richness to the project. However, we never had the opportunity to rehearse in person or perform live together because of COVID-19 restrictions. I would absolutely love the opportunity to work together with a community choir to create something that could be experienced live.
Do you have any upcoming projects or exhibitions?
Bow Open: Connections at the Nunnery Gallery, London, on until 31 August. I’m also co-curating The Wicker Arms at Staffordshire St, as part of their Festival of Community in London this August.
Flora Bradwell creates carnivalesque, playful worlds in paint, sculpture, and performance, bringing her signature fantastical humor to Flourish workshops with families and children.
Visit Flora’s website and Instagram: florabradwell.com / @florabradwellart
