EMMA BERNHARD »LETTERS TO AN OTHER«

Like an exhale, the sculptures lie around hanging from the ceiling and leaning against the gallery walls, like collapsed, draping figures that insist on becoming self-standing despite their fragile structures. Leftover tights filled with plaster and petroleum jelly resemble limbs that wobble along the floor like dancers, suddenly imbued with life. With seemingly simple gestures, felt is piled into soft folds that emphasize either the weight or the lightness of the material.

If the sculptures are placed like actors on a stage, the paintings take on a supporting role, like a choreographer or souffleur who paces their rhythm and direction. The broad strokes of colour in Bernhard’s “Failed Geometry” paintings, struggle to achieve a perfect form. Black paint leaps accross the triptych in a few intense sweeping motions that form an unidentifiable shape, like ink on a sheet of paper. Paint and surface share a common hue in other works, in which subtle strips of canvas appear where brushstrokes fade, in an otherwise uniform tone.

Bernhard’s works confer value to objects and materials by assigning them an often-fictional story which repurposes them and calls us to be aware of and care for objects despite their lifelessness.