Series I and II are Digital photographs taken and composed on computer, printed on canvas, and then finished as acrylic paintings. The technique involves blending the exact nature of photographic imagery with the inexact characteristics of the painting process. The series exemplifies the story telling process in two series of duplicate prints. The duplicate sets of prints diverge through the process of painting to tell similar but different stories. Both sets of work are a vision of the human condition using New York City’s architectural landscape as their setting.
		Born and raised in San Francisco, California, Bernard didn’t get a start on his artistic path until the age of 22. Out of a deep interest in western philosophy, he turned to drawing and painting as a way to try and realize these ideas in a physical form. In these early years, Bernard produced an incredible amount of work on his own by incorporating philosophy, literature, color theory in oil paintings that were surrealistic and colorful. He exhibited these pieces at local cafes in San Francisco and had a solo show in the old in North Beach beatnik hangout, Vesuvios. In 1996, Bernard hung a piece of his in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art out of a personal drive and curiosity of how a modern art museum would react to it. The work was taken and kept by the museum. Bernard then turned his attention to Europe and traveled there for inspiration. Spending time in the countries of France, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Germany, he eventually settled in East Berlin for about a year. While working odd jobs and learning the German language, Bernard got to experience this old and turbulent cultural center, which greatly broadened his ideas and understanding of the implications of western art in out modern age. The next year he moved to Amsterdam to study the culture and art of the Netherlands. While living and working there, Bernard took frequent trips around Holland and became very familiar with the Dutch landscape and people. After a year, he applied and was accepted to the Hoge School voor de Kunsten in Utrecht and moved there to study conceptual art. In Utrecht, Bernard’s interest in the computer as an artistic medium began and he studied graphics and web programs. At the end of the school year, he was hired as an art director for a web development company in Amsterdam and moved back up there. Feeling an urge to be back in his own culture, Bernard did not extend his working visa and returned to the States. Arriving in Washington D.C., Bernard joined the Global Peace Walk 2000 as they walked from San Francisco to New York as a prayer for global peace. The peace walk ended in New York City at the United Nations for their 55th anniversary. Bernard and two friends from San Francisco decided to stay in New York and found a place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Working odd jobs and developing his career as a freelance graphic designer, Bernard searched for a way to combine his passion for fine art and his new- found interest in computer technology. In his first year in New York, he got an opportunity to work with the emerging technology of wide-format-printing. With his digital camera, Bernard began to gather pictures of his environment and to sketch out compositions with the intent of combing these elements of computer arts and painting.. After much preparation and experimentation, he was able to produce a series of these works that are a striking example of the human condition set within unforgettable compositions. In 2003, Bernard organized Art Collision art tour with other New York artists and set off on an ambitious journey to exhibit their works in the United States and Europe.
			Exhibitions: International Gallery. Lower Haight. S F; Yakety-Yak Gallery. S F; Vesuvios Gallery. North Beach. S F; Detroit Museum of New Art - Group Show. Dt; Museum of Modern Art. S F; Chashama. NYC;