Elizabeth Bradford

Elizabeth Bradford is an American artist living in Davidson, North Carolina, best known for her large-scale paintings of landscapes. Her works have been widely exhibited throughout the southeastern United States and are collected in museums and collections, both private and corporate, across the country. Biography Bradford's North Carolina roots go back to the early 1700s; the farm she lives on was bought by her great grandfather in 1890. Growing up in rural North Carolina, Elizabeth Bradford says that as a child, she felt "caged", but that in making art, she found freedom from control. While in college at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, she took a trip to the Sahara desert which influenced her appreciation for the greatness of the outdoors. Her paintings, which depict wild landscapes, are a way of breaking free for her. She raised three sons on her grandfather's farm in Mecklenburg County, NC. Her family and family history often feature prominently in her paintings, including some of the 366 paintings that make up The Painted Journal, a printed record of her 49th birthday challenge to create a painting every day for a year over the course of 1999-2000. These subjects include paintings from a lily pool made by her great grandfather to eggs gathered from her brother's chickens.