Bernadette Phan | B Bow
- Bernadette Phan
- B Bow
- 2019
- 24”x12”x1”
- Oil on canvas and wool
There is a story or two here. The lore that follows one around. It varies in pace. Has a tactility that suggests the sensorial. The auditory, the tidal amplitude of life rippling in the demarcation of one’s dna. The past is evident but the present more so. What process is so practical as to produce an encounter or an event. This, laborious and ephemeral. Celestial and rooted, ground in dust, the detritus of the everyday rhythm, nonsymmetrical, but synchronous with the unknown, inviting you to stand still, be at ease. These stories collide. A collaboration of particles with divergent speeds and intentions coming to rest for an impromptu moment. Soft eyes. A stretch of time, spill frames into the canyon scaling the gathered. Scattered yet drawn in for visits of the everyday, with the sound of water folding onto itself.
"I work in series that evolve over time, some of them decades. The series involve repetition, formal restrictions, dialogues between painting and sculpture, memory and illusion. In each series I undertake particular subjects: language and translation, still life as imaginary springboards, perspectives as set ups. My interest and curiosity are nurtured by making percepts that connect sense perceptions and start with the obvious, visual touch as a means to investigate haptic and proximate spaces generated through the painting medium and weaving as of late. The economy of my decisions as part of the process addresses the potency of the work instead of its potentiality. In this “Stipple series”, the texture captures light and creates its own coloured shadow. The cadence and repetition amplifies the dimensional lines as an expression of warmth and intimacy within the cosmic dance of the everyday unknown." (Bernadette Phan)
Thanh Marie Bernadette Phan was born in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and moved to Canada with her family at an early age, via France. She received a BFA from Concordia University, Montréal, and graduated from the MFA program at Tyler University, Philadelphia, in 1997. She moved back to Vancouver that same year and has continued her studio practice in painting, drawing and weaving as of late. She has shown, locally, nationally and in Europe for the past 25 years. When not working, she likes to travel to Cambodia and Alert Bay.