David Bierk | Nancy Hoffman Gallery

DAVID BIERK
March 27 - April 27, 2004

David Bierk
MEMORY
This is the second in a series of posthumous exhibitions of the artist to be held at the Nancy Hoffman Gallery, opening on March 27th and continuing through April 27th, 2004. All works are now in the gallery and available for viewing.

David Bierk, Vermont Dusk, Golden Sky, HISTORY,
oil on canvas, 30 x 37 inches, 1990

David Bierk, Save the Planet, End of Day,
oil on paper, plaster on board, 28 x 36 inches, 1990

Included in the exhibition are 20 paintings, which have never before been exhibited. While the manifest subject of this exhibition is the landscape--earth and sky--glowing golden in Bierk's hand, the hidden content is simultaneously the sublime, and the devastating.

Bierk's landscapes have a signature look; the sky is more dominant than the land, often occupying the top 3/4 of the painting. It almost always glows a golden yellow at the horizon, and rises in a symphony of colors to the top. Colors such as greens, turquoises, mauves, browns fill the canvas or structure on which the work is painted. These are not azure blue skies; they are charged atmospheric spaces, almost abstract paintings.

David Bierk, Eulogy for a Planet, Night Sky,
oil on steel, 24 x 31 inches, 1993

David Bierk, Olana Pond, Morning,
oil on canvas, 14 x 27 inches, 1989

Paint is applied to the surfaces with muscular strokes, no tame brush strokes here; one feels Bierk's athleticism pushing, pulling, scraping the paint around the surface as one gazes upon his landscapes. Most are completely invented, based on Bierk's affection for landscape artists who loved the light, J.M.W. Turner, Albert Bierstadt, the Hudson River painters, among them. There is usually a river, a pond or a meander in the foreground; sometimes a mere suggestion of trees, at others trees carefully painted with leaves, trunks, stalwart in their stance.

Commencing in 1988, the landscapes span over a decade of the artist's commitment to this subject. The earliest landscapes are tough, abstract in quality, almost monochromatic, yet infused with a kind of gothic romance and gloom. The more recent works, created toward the end of Bierk's life, are more positive of palette, filled with broad gesture and freedom. Among the last landscapes completed by the artist are two paintings that sing with joy: Landscape with Yellow Sky and Landscape with Pink Sky.

David Bierk, Kawartha Morning, Locked in Migration,
oil on board, steel, 26 x 32 inches, 1990

David Bierk, St. Alban's Vista, Green Sky, Study,
oil on canvas, rusted iron on board, 28 x 32 inches, 1990

In the center of a few works in "Memory," Bierk placed a steel panel to obscure the landscape beneath, symbolic of man's blight on the earth. Several of the paintings are surrounded by Bierk's signature steel or rusted iron surface; juxtaposing a hard, weathered industrial material of no inherent value with his oil paintings, works of enduring value. For Bierk the surround was as important as the landscape, the entirety conceptualized at the time he began work on a painting.

David Bierk's feelings about the earth and the landscape were intense and he shared them with the world in his paintings. He did not mince words in his conversation, nor did he stint on the expression of his sentiments in his paintings. These are powerful, moving, heart wrenching and sublime paintings.

David Bierk, St. Alban's Dusk after Storm,
oil on board, 28 x 34 inches, 1991

David Bierk, Seine River, Locked in Migration, to Monet,
oil on canvas, steel, 53 x 55 inches, 1990

Balfour Brickner writes in his catalogue essay on the artist: "David Bierk died in the prime of his life...All agree that David Bierk had a passion for life and for painting to which he committed himself totally. Is it possible that in this last year of his life, David Bierk, optimist, lover of life, saddened by how he saw humanity in a mode of self-destruction, tried with all his remaining strength to leave a final warning for all of us? Is it possible that David Bierk was preaching his own final sermon: restore, conserve, preserve, before it is too late? We will never know."

Few of the paintings have Bierk's signature words floating in front of them; one has "MEMORY," another "HISTORY." Bierk selected universal words to float in front of some of his paintings, touchstones to thoughts and dreams. In Kawartha River Vista, Twilight, a golden river meanders from foreground to background behind the golden letters of the word "MEMORY," which float on the surface. Perhaps the artist is referring with this word to a time when the world was, indeed, a golden place of infinite promise?

David Bierk, A Eulogy to Earth,Locked in Migration, Landscape in Rust,
oil on canvas, rusted iron on board, 52 x 44 inches, 1994

David Bierk, Alberta Storm, Summer '87,
oil on canvas, 28 x 52 inches, 1988

David Bierk was born in Appleton, Minnesota in 1944. He received both a B.A. and an M.A. from Humboldt State University, Arcata, California. He also attended California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland.

David Bierk, Sunset, Jasper, Memories,
oil on board, 28 x 36 inches, 1991

David Bierk, Kawartha River, Vista, Twilight, MEMORY,
oil on canvas, 28 x 40 inches, 1990

David Bierk's work has been widely shown throughout the United States and Canada at The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, Connecticut; Binghamton University Art Museum, Binghamton, New York; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Indiana; Flint Institute of the Arts, Michigan; Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainesville; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee;

Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, New York; Las Vegas Art Museum, Nevada; London Regional Art and Historical Museum, London, Ontario; University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Memorial Art Museum, Rochester, New York; MoMA extension at Pfizer, New York, New York; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; New York Academy of Sciences, New York, New York; Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, among others, as well as many corporate and private venues.

David Bierk, Olana Pond, Dawn, Locked in Migration,
oil on board, steel, 26 x 32 inches, 1990

David Bierk, Kawartha Afternoon, Locked in Migration,
oil on board, steel, 26 x 32 inches, 1990

David Bierk, Cazadero Summer Storm,
oil on canvas, 24 x 28 inches, 1989

David Bierk, Landscape in Steel, Locked in Migration,
oil on canvas, steel, 46 x 46 inches, 2002

David Bierk, Landscape with Yellow Sky,
oil on board, 20 x 20 inches, 2001-2002

David Bierk, Landscape with Pink Sky,
oil on board, 20 x 20 inches, 2001-2002

His work is included in many public collections, among them Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario; Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Art Gallery of Peterborough, Ontario; Art Gallery of Windsor, Ontario; Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa; Canadian Postal Museum, Ottawa; The Dayton Art Institute, Ohio; Evansville Museum of Arts, Science and History, Indiana; Knoxville Museum of Art, Tennessee; London Regional Art Gallery, London, Ontario; Macdonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, Ontario; Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Alabama; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; City of Peterborough, Ontario; Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery, Owen Sound, Ontario; as well as many corporate and private collections.

David Bierk, Eulogy to Earth, Steel Sky,
oil on steel, 40 x 44 inches, 1996

David Bierk, Landscape with Steel,
oil on plaster, on board, steel, 42 x 30 inches, 2001

The artist was named Artist-in-Residence by the Canada Council, St. Catherines, and the Canada Council, North Bay, Ontario. He received the Queen's Golden Jubilee Award (posthumous) and three grant awards from the Canada Council.

David Bierk, Eulogy for a Planet, Dawn, 2000,
oil on copper on board, 28 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches

David Bierk, Eulogy for a Planet, Dusk, 2000,
oil on copper on board, 28 1/2 x 28 1/2 inches

Link to David Bierk Sanctuary Exhibition 2003