Jen Bradford did not set out to become an artist. Instead, while as an art history student at St. Andrews's University in Scotland, she began yearning to create paintings rather than observe them. She returned stateside to earn a BFA in painting at the Maine College of Art in 1994, and moved from Portland, Maine to Beacon last year.

Bradford strives to "create a bridge between accident and control, heaviness and lightness," and her "private narrative" paintings express "ideas about isolation and connection, compulsiveness, the weight of history, the fantasy of a clean slate, and the sense of expectation or foreboding."

Last summer Bradford's work was shown at Germaine Keller Gallery in Garrison and reviewed by the New York Times. In February she was featured in "Contemporary Drawings" at Brookdale College in Lincroft, NJ. Throughout March, Bradford's work is featured in "The 21st Century Salon" at Lo River Arts Gallery, Beacon; and "WordWack," a show of word-pair art, at Maxwell Fine Arts in Peekskill.