Bernie Painting

For me, painting takes place on two levels. The first level is the obvious one -- the surface of the image which I try to capture on paper or canvass. But that's really just a way of getting at the second level, all the things going on below the surface. These are the hidden truths inside of every person and every thing. For example, I love to capture my subjects in the middle of a "micro-expression" -- a smirk, a smile, a scowl -- that lasts less than a second but reveals so much about the person inside. My childhood was spent moving from place to place – boisterous construction camps in the Pacific Northwest, a fishing village at the mouth of the Columbia River, a boarding house on the plains of Montana, a small brick house in Memphis, Tennessee. With all of this moving about, I needed a refuge which I could call my own -- I found it in reading and art. I’ve worked with some great teachers, but I’m essentially self-taught. I started as a watercolorist, winning awards at the National Academy of Design and San Diego Watercolor Society, among others. Working in other mediums such as assemblage and sculpture, I’ve participated in group and one-woman shows at the Dickson Art Center, UCLA, the Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum, Whittier College, Chapman College, and Louisiana State University, among others. My ceramic sculptures are currently shown at Lemieux Galleries, in New Orleans, and The Gallery of Functional Art, in Los Angeles.