Joe Bradley


This photo was taken in my studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. I had some kind of twenty-four-hour bug that day and could barely keep my shit together. The piece on the wall, Pain Body, is one of a series of human-shaped paintings I have been working on. The title was lifted from Eckhart Tolle, who is this new-age self-help guy I'd been listening to. His theory, as I understand it, is that a person's natural state of being is one of ecstatic joy and bliss and that when we entertain lower vibrational emotions (fear, anger, etc.) what we are actually experiencing is possession by the "Pain Body." I thought painting the Pain Body might be an interesting way to keep it in check.