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    A dense cluster of small pieces of mixed wood fixed variously with screws, blue netting, ties and black ribbon, and with other items including shiny paper and card, held in the cluster. Sat on some grained wood against a plain background.
    Caption
    clutch, control, Michael Bradshaw, 2024, found and personal items and materials, 14 x 21 x 16 cm

    ©the artist

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    3 long thin constructions of wood, leaning against a wall, each one features different wood bound and fitted together with other small objects including a small bracelet, a fury toy, hair knots on pins, and using various pieces of string, ribbon, plastic, a small belt.
    Caption
    Ways of keeping things together and apart #1-3, Michael Bradshaw, 2023/2024, found and personal items and materials, and sourced repurposed wood, 7.5 x 92 x 11, 19 x 87 x 7, 9 x 120 x 4 cm

    ©the artist

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    A frail wooden frame structure is leant against a wall. The frame is held together with various means including screws, string, plastic ties and plastic bands. The frame hosts various small objects, including plastic items, a broken key ring chain and part of a soft toy.
    Caption
    Props, Michael Bradshaw, 2024, found and personal items and materials, and sourced repurposed wood 60 x 150 x 30 cm

    ©the artist

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    A precarious frame-like object made of various cuts of finished wood, such as pine both plain and painted white, with a cluster of various small objects tied and bound together linking the frame together. On top of this cluster is a clay model of small creature tied down. The structure is mainly an upright small post that links through the cluster to a frame with a grid, like a draining rack. It is shown on a dark floor against another sculpture, which appears to be a black vinyl wood effect panel, and against a white wall.
    Caption
    It’s on the rack somewhere, Michael Bradshaw, 2023, found and personal items and materials, 44 x 97 x 15 cm

    ©the artist

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    On a plain white wall, there are 4 small hanging ornament-style objects made of a dark grey clay depicting an eye, a swirl of limbs, an abstract cat creature and a horned figure. Next to these is a slightly shiny pale transparent jacket with 3 bread buttons, with ties of a blue and white string. The jacket hangs on a cross of 2 types of finished wood, one pale and one dark, which is leaning against the wall.
    Caption
    With these words I knock on your door auld Aiken-Drum … (installation detail), Michael Bradshaw, 2024, artificial (cellulose) haggis-bungs and ties, homemade soda bread, clay, sourced repurposed wood. Varied

    ©the artist

Michael Bradshaw – MA/MFA

My work concerns what it is to create and maintain a sense of place and home. It particularly draws on my experiences as a parent, and of the care, routines, and processes of change and loss entailed.

The work is made of the found and re-purposed. In its detailed clusters it mixes the personal - a discarded toy, a forgotten keepsake, hair-knots from rounds of laundry - with similar commonly found urban detritus. The make-shift structures use found and repurposed wood, with a focus on the home - floorboards, cabinets, window-frames – and are built through an improvised and provisional approach.

The work also references the role of storytelling with the presence of haggis-bag clothing. This relates to the Scottish folk-cum-marching song figure of Aiken-Drum and the history of my hometown of Corby. A rapidly built iron and steelworks town, where thousands of workers travelled from Scotland in search of work and a home.