THE BROOKLYN RAIL

Philosophers' Clambake brings together 14 paintings by Katherine Bradford, all made over the past 12 years. The title is borrowed from one of the smallest, strangest, and darkest works in the exhibition. A bit of a departure for an artist now better known for large-scale faux-naïf figures rendered in a dreamy fluorescent palette, this moody, almost nocturne-like composition from 2010 shows a group of tiny black-clad men clustered in the foreground. Behind them, a wild bonfire rages, its flames escaping upward out of the picture. Our sense of time and place is provided by the layered blue-black ground, whose subtle tonal shift suggests a horizon line against the night sky. The title casts a sense of wry humor over a scene that might otherwise read as macabre or even cultish.