David Brady: The Human Condition March 3 - April 2, 2022

[vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][no_elements_holder number_of_columns=”two_columns” switch_to_one_column=”1000″][no_elements_holder_item item_padding=”0px 50px 50px 0px” aligment=”center” vertical_alignment=”top” advanced_animations=”no” item_padding_1300_1600=”35px 50px 50x 0px” item_padding_1000_1300=”0px 35px 50px 0px” item_padding_768_1000=”0px 25px 25px 0px” item_padding_600_768=”0px 25px 25px 0px” item_padding_480_600=”0px 25px 25px 0px” item_padding_480=”0px 25px 25px 0px”][vc_single_image image=”5243″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”link_image” hover_animation=”no”][/no_elements_holder_item][no_elements_holder_item aligment=”left” vertical_alignment=”top” advanced_animations=”no” item_padding_768_1000=”0px 0px 20px 0px” item_padding_600_768=”0px 0px 20px 0px” item_padding_480_600=”0px 0px 20px 0px” item_padding_480=”0px 0px 20px 0px”][vc_column_text]As a survivor of Stage 3 Throat Cancer, Phoenix-based artist David Brady documented his personal journey through chemo and radiation with a ballpoint pen and sketchbook. His prognosis was terminal, providing no hope of recovery or remission. As a practicing visual artist for most of his adult life, Brady chronicled each arduous, frightening, and sometimes absurd, episode of his experience the best way he knew: through making art. Today, he’s made a full recovery, is happily married, and runs daily in the desert near his home in Phoenix, Arizona.

His works incorporate art layered with medical records, prescriptions, and found objects representative of ports, feeding tubes, and other medical devices. The opening coincides with his recently published graphic memoir, “Into The Tunnel”, which includes numerous color plates and poems written by the artist. Both authentic accounts of his physical and emotional transformational experience provide the reader and/or viewer rare insight into the vulnerability, fragility, and resilience of the human condition. Brady chose to share his deeply personal work as an inspiration to others in this time of global pandemic and instability, with its attendant physical & mental health challenges, and the uncertainty of it all.

In spite of the seriousness of the subject, there’s a redemptive thread of hope, resilience, and humor running throughout much of the narrative of the shows art and the memoir. Anyone who’s dealt with the ubiquitous scourge of cancer or been a loving caregiver will unquestionably recognize their own personal emotions and experiences in “The Human Condition”.[/vc_column_text][/no_elements_holder_item][/no_elements_holder][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”left” padding_top=”45″ padding_bottom=”25″ box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column][vc_column_text]

PERSONAL COMMENTS

[/vc_column_text][vc_separator type=”normal” color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.2)” up=”15″ up_style=”px” down=”15″ down_style=”px”][vc_column_text]Sometimes being the Gallery owner offers me the conceit of doing something a little different; something a bit more personal…

David and I have been friends since the mid-1980s when we were both Gallery Directors with Hanson Galleries in California – he in San Francisco and I in Carmel. We lost touch sometime in the mid-90s but became reacquainted again several years ago through social media, when he was living and working as an artist and book publisher in Santa Monica, CA. We have a lot in common – the art business, dysfunctional early family life, Mexican-American heritage, and when necessary, an occasional gallows sense of humor – so it was great to be reconnected again! I started representing his work at FH&Co in 2017 but had no clue a little later on that he was going through this experience with Stage 3 throat cancer until shortly after he’d moved to Phoenix. When we finally spoke at length again in 2021 and he shared his personal experience – him knowing that I’d also lost my first wife to cancer – we both cried, cursed, and laughed…and cried, cursed, and laughed again. Then he told me about all the work he’d created contemporaneously with a ballpoint pen and notebook, relating to each seminal experience during his near-death brush with cancer. I knew immediately we needed to present this as a Seattle gallery show! It’s our mutual wish that viewers of the work find some solace, understanding, catharsis, empathy, humor – whatever one seeks and can find through this collection of deeply emotional, and well-crafted work, created by someone who’s been there.

Fred Holmes, FH & Co Gallery Owner[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_type=”row” use_row_as_full_screen_section=”no” type=”full_width” text_align=”center” padding_bottom=”55″ box_shadow_on_row=”no”][vc_column]