Mark Bradford (Los Angeles, b. 1961) is an American visual artist who was born, lives and works in Los Angeles. He is known for grid-like abstract paintings that combine collage with paint, and his practice, shown internationally, also includes video, print and installation. In 2017 he was the United States representative at the Venice Biennale.
Bradford grew up in South Los Angeles, where his mother rented a beauty salon in Leimert Park. He obtained a hairdresser's license before studying at Santa Monica College and then at the California Institute of the Arts, where he graduated in 1991 and later earned a BFA and an MFA.
His surfaces are built from layers of paper and cord that he gouges, tears, sands and washes away. Over the years he has collected merchant posters pasted in neighborhoods, which advertise everything from cheap housing to debt relief. Works such as Black Wall Street, based on the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, and his installations inspired by Hurricane Katrina link his formal approach to social history.
His public commissions, including Pickett's Charge for the Hirshhorn and We The People at the US Embassy in London, have made him one of the most visible American artists of his generation.