David Bradley’s paintings and sculptures can be humorous, biting, and even sad.

What they are not is boring or mundane; Bradley imbues each of his works with something, or someone, that catches the eye, whether that’s Bill Clinton being attended to in a corner of a bar, or Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera at an exhibit opening. In the case of O'Keeffe, After Whistler, in the collection of the Denver Art Museum, Bradley places Georgia O’Keeffe in a similar position to the woman in James Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1, more commonly known as Whistler’s Mother.

Bradley is a Native-American artist whose work is frequently a commentary on the Native American art scene, indigenous rights, and other social issues relevant to the Native community. However, in After Whistler, he is likely simply honoring O’Keeffe, her work, and the New Mexico cultures and landscapes that they both loved and lived in. In this particular painting, Bradley includes several homages to her work, notably her characteristic clouds outside the window, the painting on the wall (Ranchos Church, No. II, NM), the flowers in the vase, and, of course, the painting she’s working on, Kachina. The petroglyphs and potsherds seen through the window are both commonly seen in his other paintings, as is the money (in the drawer), and even the electrical outlet.

This wasn’t the first time Bradley put O’Keeffe in one of his paintings, not by a long shot; she’s appeared in a number of his works: with husband and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, as a dinner guest at a Pueblo Feast Day, having a glass of wine with Navajo painter R.C. Gorman (Abiquiu Afternoon), at the Santa Fe Indian Market, even hanging out with Western star Billy Jack in El Farol, Canyon Road Cantina. He often, but not always, depicts her wearing her signature “OK” pin, and a plain black dress, and sometimes with a cat near her feet. (This painting was featured in an exhibit at the Denver Art Museum, Stampede: Animals in Art, because of the cat). Bradley, who has been a working artist since the eighties, says he's lost count of how many times he’s put Georgia O’Keeffe into his paintings.

Bradley is also known for using iconic paintings as a starting off point to tell his own stories. In addition to the O’Keeffe and Stieglitz painting, American Gothic: O’Keeffe and Stieglitz Meet Tonto and the Lone Ranger, which is based on… that’s right, American Gothic by Grant Wood, there is also Georgia O'Keeffe as Mona Lisa, complete with the enigmatic smile. Unlike da Vinci's model, O’Keeffe is wearing a jacket instead of a dress, and instead of the Italian landscape in the background, there is sagebrush, mesas, and even one of her signature steer skulls.