About

Virginia Bridge is a queer artist whose practice is rooted in geometric abstraction, minimalism and abstract expressionism.

Abstraction, like queerness, denies the familiar urge to identify or categorise; both deriving their power from their lack of fixity. Freed from the constraints of convention, they both are frequently reviled and misunderstood.

For Bridge, working beyond realism or representation allows an alternative mode of imaging and imagining. The language of form, colour, line, edge and surface materiality transcends the limitations of the spoken word and yields a mode of expression beyond the restrictions of an imagery that is a mirror to the physical world around us. Sometimes lyrical, sometimes architectural, rhythm, colour, movement and stasis are drawn into a choreography of colour and motion; a visual symphony that communicates on an elemental level; like frozen music.

Bridge’s work reflects the experience of a life lived on the margin and the daily pressures of navigating a queer identity in a world that would prefer they didn’t exist. However, this is far from obvious in the work itself. Bridge’s process is a subliminal one, privileging intention and considered spontaneity above overt expression. Her paintings and prints are to be experienced, rather than interpreted; felt rather than understood. They invite the viewer to approach them with slow looking and a clear but meditative mind, freed from the noise of everyday life and from the urge to interpret, identify or categorise. This allows their energy, tranquillity and essence of calm introspection to be experienced on a visceral, subconscious level.

Bridge graduated from the University of East Anglia in 1981, with a degree in Music with Fine Art, and the University of the West of England in 2019, with an MA (Distinction) in Multidisciplinary Printmaking.

She has exhibited widely across the UK, including the RWA, the Wells Contemporary, The Hepworth Wakefield, Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, David Simon Contemporary, Tarpey Gallery, Bankside Gallery and The Affordable Art Fair.

She is represented by David Simon Contemporary , The Drugstore Gallery and Agora Contemporary