Film, 17 mins.
A film by Jyll Bradley.
Written, Directed and Produced by Jyll Bradley
Music composed by Linda Buckley
Sound design by Jonquil Panting
Edited by Will Martin
Filmed by Emma Dalesman
Sound Recording by Adam Gutch
Voices – M.R.: Claire Rushbrook; J: Jyll Bradley
Filmed with kind permission of the Trustees of Kew.
Generously supported by David Maclean
The Meeting is the second in Jyll Bradley’s trilogy of films exploring her experience of childhood adoption. Whilst her first film M.R. (2021) explored the search for her birth mother in 1991, The Meeting (2025) unpacks their first meeting in 1992 in the Palm House, Kew Gardens, the location Bradley chose for this – and where the film is shot.
As with M.R., The Meeting uses ideas of light, structure and transparency to express the feeling of being ‘inside and outside’ at the same time, which is how Bradley describes her adoption experience. Both films intersect this with queerness and the youthful forming of creative identity. The Meeting paints a portrait of the reunion of birth mother and daughter and of the vast glasshouse which holds their story. Through the lush Eden-like tropical vegetation and sweeping arches two voices emerge revealing a story of loss, memory and societal pressure. The only figures seen are the gardeners in the background, silent witnesses to the event, quietly tending the space.
Monograph published by Kulturalis, April 2025
Hardback 192 pages
Running and Returning is the first comprehensive monograph of internationally acclaimed artist Jyll Bradley, whose diverse practice spans over four decades and encompasses photography, film, writing, performance, sculpture and large-scale public installations. A pioneer of adopting commercial lightbox technology in art, Bradley is renowned for her use of minimalist, industrial forms as spaces for exploring identity, spirituality and community. Her ambitious public realm artworks, such as Green/Light (for M.R.) (Folkestone Triennial), Dutch/Light (Turner Contemporary) and The Hop (Hayward Gallery), reflect her innovative approach to sculpture as a potent gathering place of people and ideas.
This richly illustrated book features some of the most exciting voices in contemporary art and literature exploring every aspect of Bradley’s multifaceted practice. Running and Returning will provide a vital resource for those familiar with Bradley’s work, while introducing her to new audiences in an accessible, engaging and imaginative way.
Authors and essayists include: Andrew Renton (Professor of Curating at Goldsmiths College), Nicoletta Lambertucci (Curator of British Art, Tate), Fatos Ustek (Curator of Frieze Sculpture), Ralph Rugoff (Director, Hayward Gallery).
Running and Returning is available in person at The Box shop plus online:
Jyll Bradley: Running and Returning : Bradley, Jyll, Meniru, Debbie, Prez, Darryl de: Amazon.co.uk: Books
Images: Daly & Lyon
Running and Returning
5 April – 2 November 2025
Running and Returning is a major survey show of Jyll Bradley’s rich career over 35 years of practice. Known for her large-scale public commissions such as The Hop (Hayward Gallery, 2022) and Green/Light (for M.R.) for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial, Running and Returning presents a new film and sculptural installations alongside works of historic significance. Seen together for the first time the exhibition reveals an intimate path of re-discovery and an invitation by the artist to enter her world. Bradley’s work examines identity, urbanity, queerness and community through a minimalist aesthetic, a process she calls ‘queering minimalism.’ Light as both material and metaphor runs throughout her work in the exhibition which includes her recent award-winning photographic self-portrait installation Within a Budding Grove, expanded from its original showing in Miami, U.S. Bradley was a pioneer of light box technology and the first British artist to use the light box. Her early light box installations are also on show in Running and Returning for the first time in 15 years.
theboxplymouth.com/events/exhibitions/jyll-bradley-running-and-returning
A fully illustrated monograph, Running and Returning is published by Kulturalis to time with the exhibition. This features leading writers and thinkers including Andrew Renton (Professor of Curating at Goldsmiths College), Nicoletta Lambertucci (Curator of British Art, Tate), Fatos Ustek (Curator of Frieze Sculpture), Ralph Rugoff (Director, Hayward Gallery).
amazon.co.uk/Jyll-Bradley-Running-Returning/dp/1836360096
Renowned documentary film-maker Jared Schiller has made a new film introducing Bradley and her work:
More exhibition links:
fadmagazine.com/2025/04/09/a-life-in-light-jyll-bradley-the-box-plymouth/
artlyst.com/features/ten-out-of-london-exhibitions-spring-2025/
The Hop has been installed as part of my exhibition Running and Returning. Dan Adams of DATechnical lead the expert installation team which also comprised Cameron Simcock of Form and Matter, Peter Evans and technicians from The Box. At the Box, The Hop takes on a new character; like the congregation that once worshipped at St Luke’s, emerging on a Sunday morning, gathering, arms aloft, in the sunshine, or the form, shapes and tensioning of the sails and rigging on the ships that have started their journeys from or arrived in Plymouth over the centuries.
Photo by Dom Moore.
Renowned documentary film-maker Jared Schiller has made a short film as an introduction to me and my work. The film is shown in the entrance to my exhibition at The Box and via the link below.
Interview and Production: Jared Schiller
Filming by Rosie Morris
Sound by Adam Gutch
April 2025
Running and Returning is the first comprehensive publication focussing on my 35-year career. Fully illustrated and featuring essays and texts by leading writers including Andrew Renton (Professor of Curating at Goldsmiths College), Nicoletta Lambertucci (Curator of British Art, Tate), Fatos Ustek (Curator of Frieze Sculpture), Ralph Rugoff (Director, Hayward Gallery). Available in person at The Box, Plymouth or online.
amazon.co.uk/Jyll-Bradley-Running-Returning/dp/1836360096
5 April – 2 November 2025
This major exhibition across multiple spaces in The Box includes my outdoor sculptural installation The Hop, new films, sculptures, historic light box works, and self-portraiture.
theboxplymouth.com/events/exhibitions/jyll-bradley-running-and-returning
4-8 December, 2024
Winner, Best Booth
For Untitled, Miami Beach Jyll Bradley created ‘Within a Budding Grove’ her first solo presentation of work in the U.S. The installation was subsequently awarded Best Booth at the fair, judged by Stephanie Seidel, Curator, ICA Miami.
Bradley’s installation evoked her teenage bedroom and included photographs, sculptures and a bespoke wallpaper work which created a sense of space and place. Titled after the second volume of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, ‘Within a Budding Grove’ recalled the increasing sense of self-awareness of Proust’s protagonist during his adolescence. Bradley took us on her own journey of self-discovery through the act of looking back and unearthing previously unseen photographic work from her archive.
Bradley’s 30-year career examines notions of identity, urbanity, light, nature, queerness and community through a minimalist aesthetic. A series of large-scale self-portrait photographs, taken in her bedroom when Bradley was a student in London in the 1980s and now printed at the artist’s height, were presented alongside works from the Graft and Scions series of wall-based sculptures. The dimensions of the Graft sculptures also reflect the height of the artist, forming a further representation of Bradley. ‘Within a Budding Grove’ explored ‘queering minimalism’, a term Bradley uses to describe how abstraction and minimalism can embody coded personal narratives and experiences.
Bradley’s wallpaper work was created from her complex hand-drawn patterns that reference the hop gardens of her childhood landscape. These traced a personal map across the wall with the flashes of yellow representing the fractured sun as it illuminated her room. Hung upon this wallpaper, Bradley’s photographic self-portraits examined what it was to be a young queer female, balancing the need to be seen with the instinct to hide away. Smaller self-portraits saw her play with the scale of her work exploring how memory shapes the way in which we view our experiences as we seek to recall the past.
The formal structures of her Graft sculptures (2023) reflect the agricultural landscape experienced by the artist around her childhood home of Kent, which was peppered with hop gardens. Created using Bradley’s signature materials of timber and colourful plexiglass, the Grafts can also be seen to echo the line of her spine, mirroring her own height. The play of light that Bradley witnessed as it was filtered through the glass greenhouse of the familial garden inspired her to experiment with light as a medium in her practice. The use of fluorescent live edge plexiglass in her sculptures allows light to activate her work, the viewer experiencing it anew as they move around the piece.
Bradley also introduced poetry to her sculptural forms for the first time through Scions. This series reflects on her personal archive and literary voice. Combing through early sketchpads, Bradley rediscovered lines of her poetry which she etched into the plexiglass, projecting the words out onto the viewer’s environment.
Within a Budding Grove raised questions about how we curate our personal archives and how we approach memories with new understanding brought on by the passing of time.
The 10 best Booths at Untitled Art, Miami Beach 2024 | Artsy
loeildelaphotographie.com
piartworks.com
vimeo.com
December 2024
I am thrilled to have won Best Booth with Pi Artworks at Untitled Miami. The Booth was judged by Stephanie Seidel, Curator, ICA, Miami.
Image from left: Clara Andrade Pereira, Executive Director, Untitled; Stephanie Seidel, ICA Miami; myself; Jade Turanli, Director, Pi Artworks.
The 10 best Booths at Untitled Art, Miami Beach 2024 | Artsy
December 2024
I am delighted to be presenting a solo booth with Pi Artworks
4-8 December
Booth B14