Jyll Bradley: Running and Returning

Over the last 30 years Bradley’s work has examined notions of identity, urbanity, light, nature, queerness and community through a minimalist approach. Adopted as a child, finding her place has been central to her work. Minimalism has provided an opportunity to carve out a space often using light as a medium to convey metaphors and activate her work.

On arrival, you’ll encounter The Hop (pictured above), originally commissioned for The Hayward in 2022. This vibrant interactive sculpture connects urban landscapes with rural hop gardens and is set to project a spectrum of colours around Tavistock Place throughout the summer.

Upon entering the show, the first image you’ll see is a portrait of Bradley in front of a greenhouse in her native Kent. From this point, a journey will unfold. Although deeply personal, it will explore themes and narratives that are universal.

Two films narrated by the artist - M.R. (2021) (2021) and The Meeting (2025) - bring Bradley’s adoption to light and reveal her exploration of identity and sense of self.

Naming Spaces (1989) and Urban Cowboys (1990) will be on display for the first time in around 15 years and highlight her pioneering work with the use of commercial lightboxes – a technique that has enabled her to harness light and explore identity in a more poetic way.

Within a Budding Grove, an award-winning installation first displayed in Miami as part of Untitled Art in December 2024, will be expanded for Running and Returning with self-portraits and sculptures set against a wallpaper based on hand-drawn patterns that reference the hop gardens of Bradley’s childhood landscape. Invoking her teenage bedroom, it traces a personal map across the wall with works that enabled her to explore ideas of gender, sexuality and memory. Flashes of yellow represent the fractured sunlight that illuminated the room.

The photographic series Flower Train (2010) focuses on the struggle to make personal, geographic and economic connections through the lens of the flower trade in the south west of England, the region where Bradley’s adoptive family come from.

A new freestanding sculpture titled Running and Returning uses light-reactive materials and is rooted within Bradley’s ongoing interest in how light is utilised within agricultural architecture to nurture and to grow.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a major new publication on Bradley’s work. Texts have been contributed by Ralph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery; Noreen Masud, British writer and literary scholar; Gemma Rolls-Bentley, curator and author, and Fatoş Üstek, curator of Frieze Sculpture.

About Jyll Bradley

Jyll Bradley (b.1966, Folkestone) is an English artist and writer based in London who works across installation, sculpture, performance, film and photography. She studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths’ College, London (1985-88) and Slade School of Art, London (1991-93). In her early works she used photographic lightboxes, which could be found in street advertising, as an artistic medium, and was one of the first artists (if not the first) in the UK to do so.

Bradley has worked as an award-winning writer for BBC Radio, creating original dramas and documentaries focusing particularly on women's lives and hidden stories. Her interest in community and placemaking has led her to create large-scale public works, using her signature materials of fluorescent plexiglass and LED, such as Green/Light (for M.R.) (2014) for the 2014 Folkestone Triennial and The Hop (2022) at the Hayward Gallery.

Bradley’s work is held in major collections in the UK and Australia, as well as important private collections internationally. Recent presentations include Drawing Biennial, Drawing Room (2024), Frieze Sculpture (London, 2023); Threshold, (Kaunas, Lithuania, 2022); Pardes, The Fruitmarket Gallery (Edinburgh, 2021).

Find out more

• Visit Jyll Bradley's website.
• Follow her on Instagram.
• Listen to her introduce The Hop.
• Watch a 2021 artist talk hosted at The Fruitmarket, Edinburgh.

Header image

Jyll Bradley, The Hop (detail). Image Thierry Bal. Courtesy of the artist.