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| Technique: | oilpaint, watercolour | |
| Date of exhibition: | November 9 - December 16, 2001 |
Special solo-exhibition of Bernardien Sternheim
(also a group exhibition of ±35 realists)
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The images that Bernardien Sternheim paints, are quite compelling. Compelling, as she not only focuses on man, but particularly on his vulnerability. In the eyes of the portrayed something of ourselves is mirrored, though we are not at our best, not in our finest moment, but caught unawares as it were. She does so in oil paint and with each squeeze in the tube, she empties herself more and more. Certainly not the easiest of stuff. Moreover, she experiences the art of painting as a struggle for life, as an attempt to ward off the fear of death, as an impossible competition with God himself. Still, it is not all trouble and affliction, because this struggle, executed in oil, gives her the opportunity to revenge herself again and again, for in this technique corrections are always possible. |
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 Girl with freckles, 1989, water colour, 17,5 x 24 cm. | zoom | |
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But things are different as regards the water-colour. When the night spreads its black sheet over the roofs of the city, Bernardien, under a solitary lamp, fights the darkness with some brushes, water, paint and paper. Again human figures emerge, but now they are not posing, this time they flow out of her mind directly onto the paper. Those are her Nightchildren. Their birth has to take place flawlessly, for corrections in this technique are impossible. Miscarriages are inevitable, but when a delivery is successful, the new Nightchild is put aside with the utmost care. And even then fate can strike a hard blow, as we witnessed once when we paid her a visit in her studio: a cat had vomited on an almost finished water-colour. Also the work itself is not without vulnerability. It needs to be said: Bernardien's Nightchildren don't come easy into this world. But once they have arrived in their sheer nakedness, they shine like stars and enlighten the gloom. At this special exhibition of Bernardien Sternheim almost 40 of her Nightchildren are exhibited, as well as some drawings and works in oil paint. |
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 Smoking woman, 1993, water colour, 35,5 x 25 cm. | zoom | |