An American Desertscape and an East Coast Suburban Swimming Pool

Monica Bernier: Recent Work
An American Desertscape and an East Coast Suburban Swimming Pool

Monica Bernier’s second exhibition at Bowery Gallery runs from April 23 – May 18, 2019. The artist will be present for an opening reception on Thursday, April 25, 5 – 8 PM. Bernier will give a talk about the work with painters Naomi Nemtzow and Rita Baragona on Saturday, May 11, 4 – 5 PM at the gallery. Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 6pm.

For further information and images of the works in the exhibition please visit our website at www.bowerygallery.org. For additional images and information visit www.monicabernier.com.

The desert paintings in this exhibition were inspired by a cross-country road trip in 2017. Much of that two months time was spent drawing and photographing National Parks in Utah and California. As has been her practice with abstract cutouts Bernier recreated her experiences of these vast spaces and their color by conforming the perceived space to the flattened picture plane and heightening the color. The results are images that are more about her memory of the environment.

Over the following year she was engaged with depictions of a backyard swimming pool in Connecticut. Taking a similar approach, the pool images shown are both daytime and night views with the pool lit from within. Again, they are flattened to give full agency to the color-shape relationships, evoking the sensation of the pool as an iconic image.