New BYU Department of Art Chair Collin Bradford: Adding Land, Time, and Love to the Palette

Photo by James Talbot

New BYU Department of Art Chair Collin Bradford urges artists to excel and be prolific without depending on external validation. In the Center’s Studio Podcast with Glen Nelson, he talks about recent work, discusses how he experiences art and gives advice to developing artists.

“We all have inherent ideas about what art is and what art does and what artists do from the culture around us,” Bradford said. “When I see art, I am not interested in deciding if it is good or bad. I think, ‘Does this speak to me? Am I the right audience for this thing?’”

Bradford has been part of BYU’s Department of Art since 2016 and says BYU art students are “incredibly rich and diverse,” like the art world itself. However, he has also noticed a common thread. Most of the students’ work reflects “a return to sincerity.” He said this generation’s art attest to “belief in each other, in people, in moral and ethical issues.”

Bradford double majored in art and Spanish translation as an undergraduate at BYU before getting his MFA in art at the University of Illinois. Part of what made the art world feel natural to him was that it allowed him to explore all his other interests in a uniquely direct way.

“Art makes ideas available to our minds and emotions directly through the senses instead of having to pass through the linguistic part of our brains, so you can feel an idea rather than think through it logically,” he said.

The subject of his art has changed over time, and the media he’s used is varied, but his current interests are land, time and the privilege of living.

Lately, he has created video installations to introduce time as a medium. One installation, called “Accelerating the Sunset (by riding a bicycle away from the sun as fast as I can),” explores the idea of what “volition” a person has as a “small sentient being” on a “large rotating planet.” In the video, Bradford rides east with a camera mounted on the back of a bicycle in an attempt to speed up the sunset. The video is contrasted with a video shot by an unmoving camera at the starting point. We see that the rider manages to capture the setting sun faster. A more recent sculptural installation by Bradford involves Pando, the famously large aspen tree; a recent photograph pictures mountains in almost jail-like frames.

He said he, like most artists, will look at his older works as irrelevant to his current work, but there are themes that will arise for all artists who practice long enough.

“Something that is so important for people who are growing as artists — which is every artist — is finding a way for what you are doing to come out of love,” Bradford said. “You should love that thing so you can keep making it, so that it is not drudgery, not discouraging and so that the journey of making it is enriching enough to carry you through it. That’s the only way you will be able to sustain the making to get where you make amazing things time after time after time.”

You can hear the full podcast at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts' website.