catalogue

Wanda Bernardino

24.Oct.08 - 08.Nov.08
Contemporary Art Projects
20 Rivington Street
London EC2A 3DU
020 7739 1743
info@caprojects.com
www.caprojects.com
Tube Old Street, Liverpool Street, Shoreditch / Hoxton

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Bernardino reworks portrait pieces in her own unique style. Some are derived from formal portraits and others such as ‘Enduring Brace’ are informal and subtle. Bernardino gives us pared down essentials of these original paintings where she intentionally conceals some aspects and reveals others. She makes a very deliberate act of concealment by using strong gestural marks with white paint to cover most of the women’s faces.

Bernardino has deliberately copied, reworked and recreated old formal portrait pieces. By reworking them they are given a new significance. She simulates these old portraits and changes the context by isolating the individuals and placing them in a new space. They occupy an abstracted space which has little perspective. Here they are bought up close to the viewer and appear to float, lost in time, in an unknown place.

There is some illusion of depth through the layering of veneers of paint and the colours embody an expressive quality which works to capture a sensitivity and feeling. There is delicacy and grace at play with areas of visibly loose painterly brushwork that acts as a framing device for the realistic representations of the women held within. These contrasts work to evoke a sense of dislocation and drama within the paintings.

Bernardino’s style of painting has plenty of aesthetic power, reason and dignity. Her paintings capture a strong sense of emotion and of feeling, a feeling that something is unresolved and intangible. Ideas of secrecy and privacy cling to her whole body of work and her recent paintings especially speak of the spectre of the unknown. Bernardino’s work has a depth and mystery that keeps a lasting hold on the imagination.

Wanda Bernardino studied History of Art and Architecture at The University of Reading between years 2003 - 2005 and before Fine Arts at The American University in London. She was a Celeste Art Prize and The Hunting Art Prize nominee. She had a Residency at the Florence Trust in London in years 2000 – 2001.