Duck Walk

Bradford rarely creates his works with paint. Rather, he often binds together layers of found and store-bought papers with materials like string and glue, and then sands down the collages to reveal different colors in irregular configurations. In Duck Walk, Bradford used bleach and water to transform some of his black and white paper stocks into yellow and tan tones. The reduced color palette, monumental size, and jagged contours reference Abstract Expressionism, and particularly the paintings of Clyfford Still. Whereas Still argued that his paintings made no reference to everyday life, Bradford’s piece, which takes its title from a dance move associated with the musician Chuck Berry and later adapted by the ballroom voguing community, resonates with African American history and culture.