ARTIST BIO: Todd Bradley (1970, Detroit, USA) is a gay, color blind, photographer residing in San Diego, California. Todd’s work has shown in solo and group exhibitions in museums and galleries worldwide, including The Louvre, Paris, Museum of Fine Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana, and The Griffin Museum of Photography, Boston. His portfolios have been published in print magazines around the world and his work has been used in a public art installation in Washington State. Todd is one of the founding members of the recognized Snow Creek Collaborative in San Diego. He often works with a macro lens shooting dioramas and floras, also shooting alternative portraiture, architecture, and uses digital manipulation and collage to tell his stories. Todd constructs small still life tableaus and miniature scale model dioramas that become his narrative. Todd’s aesthetic focuses on detailed features, color (even though he’s color blind) to demonstrate new perspectives to ordinary objects in still time. Todd recently has brought analog medium and large format film photography back into his art.
ARTIST STATEMENT: The mysterious beauty of pre Christian paganism has always drawn me in. There is something inherently enchanting about the gods and goddesses, the myths and legends, and the rituals and ceremonies our ancestors once practiced. In my latest portfolio, I have sought to capture this magic and bring it to life through photographs depicting Odin and Frigg traveling from Asgard to Midgard with goddesses Fulla, Gná, and Hlín encountering Puck for a plea of remembrance. To achieve this, I drew inspiration from the pictorialism style of Anne Brigman, a pioneering photographer often credited with helping establish photography as a fine art form. Like Brigman, I sought to create visually stunning and emotionally evocative images, using light, shadow, and natural compositions to develop a sense of depth and mystery. Each photograph in this portfolio tells a story, inviting the viewer to a world where pre-Christian paganism's gods and goddesses are still alive. In one image, we see Odin sitting on a stone throne with his Ravens, Huginn and Muninn, his eye gazing intently into the distance as if searching for something lost. In another, Frigg is depicted as a serene and influential figure, her long hair flowing like her cloak as her clairvoyance receives a message from the seashore. Yet despite their otherworldly nature, these images are also deeply rooted in the natural world. The lush, verdantland scapes and wild, untamed vegetation that populate these photographs remind us of our connection to the earth and the cycles of life and death integral to pagan mythology. Ultimately, this portfolio will serve as an invitation to rediscover the rich and complex world of pre-Christian paganism and find inspiration and meaning in the legends and myths that have shaped our collective consciousness for centuries.
