Bernadine Fox Artist Statement

Artist Statement

When I am dead, let it be said of me: 'He belonged to no school, to no church, to no institution, to no academy, least of all to any regime except the regime of liberty.' (Gustave Courbet)

Bernadine Fox BFA is a multi-talented artist who creates both three- and two-dimensional work. Mostly, she paints in traditional oil on canvas with bright colours, strong contrasts and an emphasis on light. Her drawings are usually rendered realistically although she loves the immediacy and line only afforded with contour. She sculpts and works with mixed media using computer graphics, collage and assemblage. At first glance, one might construe her range of mediums as an inconsistency until you become familiar with her subject matter. Then it becomes clear that for Bernadine, the message she skilfully conveys with her art is more important than the medium employed. The narratives she weaves are generated from the inspirations and the experiences found within the context of being female. Bernadine creates works of art for and about the contemporary lives of women.

Fox is a contemporary artist and as such she finds value in the post-modern imperative of communicating with one’s audience. Her paintings emulate the style of expressionists and post-impressionists like Van Gogh, Gaugin, and Munch, Kollwitz, and Valadon.

Several years back, Bernadine abandoned the white canvas for black. By doing so, she reversed the traditional approach to creating art: instead of painting shadow and darkness, Bernadine paints light mirroring how we see and understand the world. It is light reflecting off objects that tells us if it has a polished or rough surface. As light hugs the side of objects it reveals their shape. It is the contrast between light and dark that lets us know how close we are to an object. In the same way, it is the painting of light that brings an object in Bernadine’s work to life.

Your paintings were gifted with a delicacy of light and shadows that webbed the simple into a complex narrative of reflections and colour, I truly admired your paintings!"                                                                    Edmond W. at PHS and Interurban Gallery

Fox’s great-great uncle, Timothy Cole, was renown in North America for his prints from wood engravings. Like Cole, Bernadine’s artistic talent was recognized early in childhood. She started painting, in oil, at ten years of age. She has an education in both fine art (BFA, Emily Carr) and in mental health. She has worked extensively with survivors of severe childhood trauma and with a variety of professionals around DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Her expertise lies in the nature of trauma, memory, dissociation, and normal human behaviour.

Bernadine's work with women re-ignited her passion for creating art that spoke to the contemporary reality of their lives. Surprisingly, this has less to do with what has been commonly-held for them like cooking, gardening, or fashion and more to do with striving for economic and racial equality, juggling work and child- or elder-care, enjoying sexual freedom, along with building homes, stock portfolios, and businesses. Our understanding of their priorities is in desperate need of an overhaul and the obstacles they face are not "other" but the very experiences that ripen the female self. Bernadine’s work draws its essential force from an inalienable right to be self-defined. Therefore, in art, she wants herself, and women in general, to be artistically touched by the female hand. She makes art that matters, declares meaning, at times defies status quos and, at other times, will reach inside and touch some small part of you.

"...it was a beautiful exhibition of your paintings, the images and colors of the fruit/still-life’s are still reverberating in my memory."

                                                 Savannah T.E. Walling, Artistic Director, Vancouver Moving

                                        Theatre & Associate Artistic Director, DTES Heart of the City Festival

Bernadine understands that art is a powerful form of language. Drawing upon her fine art training and her study of socio-psychological constructs, normal human behaviour, how our brains process life experience, and self-archaeology Fox infuses her work with layers of meaning far beyond the surface images allowing each individual viewer carte blanche to explore their own personal response to the art. She focuses on the human condition and how the complexities of self-expression, most especially nonverbal forms of communication, reveal the human condition and our sense of identity.



Sign Up for Bernadine's eBlast

Or, you can follow Bernadine on Facebook, Twitter, or her personal Blog.

All images and writings are copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in any manner, without the expressed permission of the artist.