After a tumultuous 5-year journey, artist Joseph Bradley returns to West Greenville
It’s a journey that includes arson, illness, patience, and loss. An eight-month build took five years to complete, and the artist says—in every way—he’s better for it. “I think the story is, we finished the studio,” says Joseph Bradley.
In 2018, Bradley purchased two empty lots on Pendleton Street. He’s had studios in West Greenville before: at ArtBomb and at the Flat Iron building, but this would be his own footprint. After a storied career, Bradley would conceive, from the ground up, a space for his next creative chapter.
His grandfather worked his entire life in West Greenville. Today, Bradley can see the textile factory from his studio. “I have a deep connection to this street,” he says. “My grandfather worked at Brandon in the ’20s, a hundred years ago.”
But from the start, the project presented obstacles. The lots proved tricky to combine and plans took a year to gain approval. Then builder Phil Gilliam fell ill. The pandemic swept in, and materials became scarce. The project felt vexed, but Bradley held on and waited for Gilliam to recover.
Weeks from completion in the fall of 2022, Bradley answered a call. A fire had been set at the project site. He arrived to find the building—more than three years in the making—burnt to the ground.
“We would have been in before Christmas,” he says. “It was the biggest thing I’d ever tried to do and the realization that it was gone was gutting.”
Joseph Bradley Studio Opens
Now, 18 months later, Joseph Bradley Studio is open at last.
Bradley is one of Greenville’s most recognizable artists. His prolific work, featuring Carolina wildlife in large scale and often in repetition, feels ubiquitous. Collectors, designers, and developers alike place Bradley’s paintings in marquee interiors. His work is hand-gilded and glazed with precision. It hangs in stark contrast to a childhood spent in Southern poverty. The family of nine lived in a house more suited for three or four in the countryside of Piedmont. He sought refuge outdoors, observing color and texture, small animals, insects, and birds. In the quiet of the natural world, Joseph Bradley found beauty.
Today, Bradley and his wife, Rachel, and their three sons live in the North Main area of Greenville. During the many setbacks, he painted in a cramped studio nearby. Moving into the new space feels nothing short of liberating. There’s a front gallery with a sliding door to cordon off a massive back studio. It boasts 30-foot ceilings clad in cypress. Light floods the building, which includes a loft with comfortable seating, a conference table, and a studio kitchen. When the train goes by, its boxcars are captured in a trio of upper windows.
“People have said, ‘Your colors are brighter,'” says Bradley. “I think it’s because I’m finally painting in an abundance of light. It’s the most light I’ve ever had, and the height here, it elevates your aspirations.”
Spoonbill Gallery
Next door is Spoonbill Gallery. It’s a project Bradley has long wanted to launch. It features art from living artists he knows and likes, mostly Southern, and mostly targeted for residential rooms. Spoonbill employs its own gallerist, Kristina White, who plans to show up to four dozen artists on rotation.
The courtyard will be the model garden of landscape architects DabneyCollins. Its centerpiece is something Bradley has never had access to: a koi pond.
“I have koi and flowers and nature right here,” says Bradley. “I believe a studio has influence over you. This space and these gardens and the gallery next door, it all means I’m making better art.”
The completed project feels like a vintage warehouse, but it’s a freestanding building perfectly suited for how Bradley produces large-scale art. It feels far from the ramshackle farmhouse with cars parked in the yard. He says as a child he was keenly aware of what made his friends’ homes beautiful: real hardwood floors, shining countertops, furnishings intentionally placed. He can see now that much of the property’s design comes from a deep imprint.
“I had no idea the amount of growth I would experience personally after the studio burned down. It sounds like a horrible thing, but it wasn’t,” he says. “It was one of the most pivotal experiences in my life. We all know what it means to lose something you care about, but it’s rare to lose something that reminds you, you already have everything you value.”
As a young artist, Bradley focused on promoting his brand, but now he’s more interested in the people around him. He says his relationship with his family and friends are all better for the struggle the last five years presented. And launching Spoonbill Gallery is a big step towards pushing his creativity outwards.
“I think the best things happen in community,” he says.
Heading West
A textile village peopled by artists and studios
Joseph Bradley moved into ArtBomb with Diane Kilgore, Mark Mulfinger, and Katie Walker in 2001. They had been painting in a space above Charlie’s Steakhouse, now Society Sandwich Bar. He says Kilgore has a superpower to make anything beautiful, and she did that with ArtBomb.
“I didn’t realize until much later that what happened at Art Bomb was so unique,” says Bradley, “and it gave me credibility early on because I was around all these well-known artists.”
Fifteen artists quickly found their way to West Greenville, too, and though most of the businesses were shuttered, it offered wonderful spaces for studios. Bradley married his wife, Rachel, in the garden at ArtBomb. In 2011, he secured a lease at the Flat Iron Building mostly because he decided it was time for abundant HVAC. He stayed for a decade.
His work has significantly changed since the days of painting on Coffee Street. In his early years, he tried his hand at abstracts and collage. He was given advice to narrow down his subject matter and took it to heart.
“I landed on wildlife,” he says. “When I focused on themes of birds and fish and the nature that I interact with my career really took off.”
It’s full circle for Bradley to again plant his flag in West Greenville. From ArtBomb to the Flat Iron Building to Joseph Bradley Studio and Spoonbill Gallery, it feels like the artist is meant to work in creative pursuit on Pendleton Street.
Joseph Bradley Studio and Spoonbill Gallery
josephbradleystudio.com; spoonbillgallery.com
1290 Pendleton St., Greenville
Open Tues.- Sat. 10am-until; extended hours the first Friday of each month
