Exhibition Opening: First Friday, November 4, 2022, from 6-9 pm
Gallery Hours: Saturdays & Sundays during the weekends of November 5, November 12, and November 19, from 2-6 pm
Pink Noise Projects is proud to present Almost Didn’t Happen, a solo exhibition by Philadelphia artist Bridget A. Purcell. Purcell’s practice reflects on the anxiety-inducing nature of contemporary culture, utilizing repetition as a visual strategy to explore constructs like domestic space, consumer culture, and shifting American landscapes. She experiments with a variety of media, including painting, drawing, ceramics, and sculpture, to create multi-faceted installations featuring the bright colors we often see in advertisements, product design, and packaging. Purcell pulls from design trends while also subverting them, creating fragmented, nonsensical spaces that exist in a liminal territory between domestic and institutional space. She seeks to create environments that are visually appealing but also slightly off, in an effort to process the disorienting and anxious nature of our saturated visual culture.
In addition to these more academic pursuits, however, this show is also about how hard it is to be – and stay – an artist. These pieces document a stubborn persistence and attachment to making, in the face of the often overwhelming responsibilities we are forced to navigate as we age. American culture pushes us to buy things, but it doesn’t always encourage us to celebrate or invest in visual art. The cities that have long served as art hubs are becoming more expensive every day, and it’s increasingly difficult for many artists to find the funding, space, time, or support to make their work. Purcell’s exhibition documents a constant return to making while navigating these intimidating challenges and never-ending complications, offering up a body of work that almost never existed or came to be, at all. By reflecting on place at a cultural moment where so much in domestic space and city life is changing at a rapid pace, Purcell’s installations question what a stable space for art making could look like, and where it could possibly exist.
Bridget A. Purcell is a visual artist who lives and works in Philadelphia. She has a BFA in Painting and Drawing with an Art History minor from Tyler School of Art, and an MFA in Multi-Disciplinary Visual Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. Her artwork has been shown in various art spaces in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Chicago, and Rome, Italy, and she has worked as a creative professional with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Sam Fox School, the University City Arts League (UCAL), and the National Liberty Museum. Purcell currently works as a grant writer for Philabundance and is an artist member with Pink Noise Projects and Inliquid, which are both member-based creative organizations in Philadelphia. She has published works of art writing with the Art Blog, the St. Claire, NAPOLEON, and Title Magazine.
Website: www.bridgetapurcell.com
Instagram: @bridgetapurcell
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