The Castoffs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Halifax, N.S.) May 31, 2017

EXHIBITNG NEXT: CAROL BERNIER & MARIETTE ROODENBURG
New abstract landscapes in paint and print
AT STUDIO 21 FINE ART
Jun 9-Jul 6

Studio 21 is pleased to present an exhibition that includes abstract oil paintings that incorporate the scraps (castoffs) of Carol Bernier’s students’ work, and two series of layered multiple long exposure photographs from Mariette Roodenburg’s residency at the Baer Art Center in Northern Iceland. Both exhibitions run from June 9 to July 6, 2017.

CAROL BERNIER:
THE CASTOFFS
Carol Bernier is both a painter and a teacher. As an elementary teacher engulfed in her duties, inspiration had to come from the young creative minds of her students.

“At the end of my teaching day, I was moved when I came upon the traces of my students lively, sensitive work. The children also entrusted me with a few finished drawings or paintings, as I had asked them not to throw anything away. I affectionately dubbed my little collection of those The Castoffs,” says Carol Bernier.
Now, twenty years later, she is teaching adults—and asks them not to throw anything away. The new Castoffs are incorporated into her abstract oil paintings of this exhibition. Combing through those precious scraps, tearing them up, sticking them together, superimposing one upon the other, she once again delights in creative play.
Born in Montreal, on March 9, 1963, Carol Bernier received a CEGEP degree in Arts in 1983, a BFA in 1988 and a Master’s degree in 1994 from UQAM. Her studies and workshops in Quebec and abroad include clothing design at College Lasalle, and printmaking in Paris and Hungary. Many trips to Turkey, Morocco, France, Belgium and Japan have complemented her artistic training.  

MARIETTE ROODENBURG:
BAER WITH ME/THE CLOUD & THE MOUNTAIN

Both series of Mariette Roodenburg’s photographs were taken in a small, remote area in Northern Iceland, not far from the Arctic Circle. It is an exceptional place with large skies, roaring seas, thunderous clouds and fog-smoking mountains, with the Baer Art Center as its central point and its radius a days-walk long.

“As an artist-in-residence of the Baer Art Center in the summer of 2015, I watched the sun rise and set in the north, or not set at all; I lived through days without end and nights without darkness; I watched the light set the land on fire and the clouds throw heavy shadows on the fields,” says Mariette Roodenburg.

Both Baer with Me and The Cloud and the Mountain reflect Roodenburg’s dialogue with this unusual place.

Born in Curaçao, raised in The Netherlands and a Canadian resident since 2003, Mariëtte Roodenburg has always lived on the edge of land and sea. She studied photography at the Academy Amsterdam-Fotogram in the Netherlands. Prior to becoming a full time photographer, she worked in finance in Europe and South East Asia and launched Anderson gallery of contemporary photography in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia which she ran from 2003 until 2015. Her photographic work has been exhibited in The Netherlands, Germany, the United States and Canada.

Studio 21 Fine Art is the most significant commercial gallery dealing in contemporary fine art in Atlantic Canada. The gallery was established in 1983 and since then has been exhibiting and selling the work of outstanding Canadian contemporary (that is, current not historic) artists, providing artwork to private and corporate collectors locally, nationally and internationally. Outside of the gallery space located in the heart of Halifax’s new downtown cultural mecca near the waterfront, Studio 21 also exhibits regularly at art fairs in the US and Canada, including Art Toronto and Papier (Montreal). Studio 21 Fine Art is a member of the Art Dealers Association of Canada. For more information visit www.studio21.ca