William Eckhardt Kohler reviews the exhibition Katherine Bradford: Small Ships at Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects, New York, on view through October 13, 2013.

Kohler writes: "Bradford's willingness to move freely between painting genres and schools leads to a sense that she is essentially being profoundly herself and that she has forged these parts into her own visual language, something quite rare and difficult to pull off. One of the most distinctive qualities of this language is the tenderness implied by both the subject and the handling of her material. It doesn't seem like too much of a stretch to imagine the ship as a stand in for the artist's own journey, for the inevitable failures, struggles and destructions of the creative process, and also of the human capacity to push forward finding humor in life."