Peals of Spring
Meridiana
Pythagoras A
Kevin Bernstein
Artist Statement
In my work, I attempt to create something that invokes an experience that is as powerful and felt to me as that which I may unexpectedly encounter in nature. The ephemeral and elemental experiences in nature serve as my spiritual guide to help explore painting as a journey of discovery as well as invention. The resulting works are fictions, existing as other, synthetic, alien, imagined worlds. Through the lens of the natural—the bombardment of technological advances and scientific imagery in daily life has impacted my understanding of self and place in the natural world. What we know and question through science changes my perception of geologic time, the biological, and the organic. Understanding the natural process—the phenomenon, the science—conjures my imagination
Science, math, and technology have continually reshaped humankind’s relationship to nature. While each gives a rationale to the other, nature serves as a way for deconstruction and as a mediator. The elements of nature, in flux and change, decay and growth, become a metaphor for the process of painting. I am drawn to these elements as they transcend time and place. I desire to reach a tipping point where the natural and artificiality of the made world are in symbiotic interplay, each consuming or subsuming the other.