The Imaginarium of Brigitte Bere

The exhibition includes a number of works with a focus on shapes, form and vibrant colours. The artist works intuitively in a variety of mediums including acrylic, watercolour, encaustic, collagraphy (printmaking), pastel, felting, sculpture, high relief works, and acrylic collage, acrylic ink, graphite and alcohol ink. Over the last few years, Brigitte Bere has concentrated on her experiments with alcohol inks for their dynamic and exciting colour vibrancy and fluid interactivity during experimentation.

Brigitte Bere is a Sudbury-based interdisciplinary visual artist, born in postwar West Germany. She moved to Canada in the late 70s and has resided in Sudbury ever since. She attended Cambrian College in Sudbury during the 80s, where she studied graphic design and sculpture. Over the years she has had the opportunity to expand her knowledge of the arts while taking workshops with Brian Atyeo and Linda Finn.

Brigitte Bere creates her work from a wide variety of sources of inspiration and reference materials. Blending memory, images and ideas together with an improvisational approach, her works seem to simply develop from one stroke to the next irrespective of what that first brush stroke maybe. Painting intuitively, for her, means “To paint from the heart, rather than the head.” In her more complicated paintings, collages, and felted works, she has focused her attention on directing composition and crafting fine detail.

Recently, Brigitte Bere has been working mainly in alcohol inks. She says “…the medium seems to make some of its own decisions during its application on the substrate. Sometimes working intuitively means giving up the idea of making decisions and letting it happen instead.” This medium has allowed her to become absorbed into the application of colour over colour and let the image develop without distractions or preconceived plans.