Ed Bordett

Biography

(American, 21st Century)

Ed Bordett was born in Long Island, New York. In 1952, Ed began his formal arts eduction at New York’s National Academy of Fine Arts and completed his studies upon graduating from Florida’s Ringling School of Art. Bordett would make his way to Roanoke, Virginia establishing a studio and home where he remained for 15 years. “The Roanoke area supported me in many ways as a young artist and enabled me to have space to live and establish a studio in the fledgling stages of my career.”

The spirit of Bordett’s current work can be traced back to his arrival in Roanoke where he was first drawn to the city market. There he found himself seduced by the vibrance, energy, and constantly shifting visuals of the market and the city that surrounded it. Bordett became artistically invested in the geometric aspects of the architecture, subtle reflections of light on shop windows, the colors of produce and flowers, complex interplay of shadows thrown by fire escapes, and the movement of figures as they made their way through the streets.

Over the span of his career Bordett has traveled extensively both nationally and internationally and along the way taken his unique sensibility and interest in the urban and rural vernacular first established in Roanoke. In New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Venice, and many small towns and villages he continues to find the same vibrance of setting and energy of life but with increased scale and depth.

Play is also a large part of Bordett’s practice. He often finds himself deviating from the rigidity of rendering realistic streets scenes and figures to abstraction, portraiture, and carnivalesque signage. Through it all Bordett maintains a deeply ingrained desire to pause and find beauty in the everyday. whether it’s a hot dog stand or a panorama overlooking his small town home in the depths of winter. Bordett says, “You may walk by a fire escape everyday and hardly notice it, but perhaps my interpretation can cast it in a transformative way, and rather than being an unremarkable piece of infrastructure it can become beautiful.”

Bordett now lives and works in Fincastle, Virginia where he raised his family and continues to create. His studio building is now located in a former Oldsmobile dealership from the 1930’s. This spacious building houses his darkroom, paint room, print room, framing, and gallery.