LESLIE BERNS STUDIO

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Color, Surface, Structure

Digital Photograph from the series
Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative (Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom)
My Family Constellation (1953/1964)

Scanning the studio in search of an appropriate material, my eyes landed on a package of wood shims, those inexpensive sticks used to stir paint, level, etc. In a moment of serendipity, I realized they were precisely the material - the perfect medium - to translate the paper ‘bookmarks’ (above left) into a three-dimensional structure/surface for oil paint. After putting these two photographs side by side on Instagram, I realized I enjoy seeing the inherent variations in the natural tones of unpainted wood. Still, I'm eager to work with oil pigments on this new series of shim constructions (stay tuned:). The pattern suggests weaving, yet the stacks of shims are actually stepped. It seems I’m perpetually working out the relationship of color and surface to structure.

Self Portrait In the Glass

Just now as I'm posting this self portrait, I realized the reflection on the glass is a metaphor for the 'social mirror' - the ways in which our identities are partially and mutually constructed by the perceptions and projections of those around us. But the looking glass itself is often problematic.

Digital Photograph, June 28, 2016
(Includes image of: Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative (Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom): Castoffs, 2015
Courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection, Special Collections Department, Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University

Friday, November 6, 2015

FACULTY EXHIBITION

University of Maryland - Department of Art

November 2nd - December 11th, 2015

Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative:
Who Could and Couldn’t Marry Whom - Fluidity
Collage, paper
2015

(Portraits and text courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection

Special Collections Department, Pickler Memorial Library

Truman State University)

IMPLICIT BIAS

Joan Hisaoka Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts

and Busboys and Poets

September 18th - December 5th, 2015

The 'Flower of Life' as a Mixed Race Narrative:

a Yin-Yang Theory of the Life Cycle, Color and

Identity (the One Drop Rule is not a Two-Way Street)

XII and XXiV

Cut outs, paper
2015
(in the middle, work by Tim Davis)

Bookmarks for a Mixed Race Narrative:
Who Could and Couldn't Marry Whom - Castoffs
Collage and cut paper
2015
(Portraits and text courtesy of Harry H. Laughlin Collection, Special Collections Department,
Pickler Memorial Library, Truman State University)