For more than 20 years, J. Kip Bradley (Professor of foundation studies; B.F.A., painting, 1996) has engaged in a community-based art practice, working with Savannah’s underserved and at-need populations. For the past 10 years, he has worked locally and internationally, organizing sketching and painting groups, and has taught workshops encouraging people to explore a sense of presentness through art — a mode that he aspires to in his own practice. Bradley’s direct observational paintings explore small events and familiar places, portraying a sense of time and the intimate character of a setting, as well as embodying the fleeting moments of the act of painting. Rather than focusing on a finished product, his work savors the in-between. He often works en plein air, which he enjoys for the qualities of the changing light, the need for quick, decisive compositional choices, and the responsibility of a wise color palette. Steeped in the principles of art, his work keenly balances formal elements with often surprising results.