Artist Statement 
I enjoy the call to nature, the peacefulness of being in nature. I need to express the quiet joy I feel and my sense of wonder about nature. Painting en plein air is my way of expressing that need. It is also a forgetting time—a time to forget about the trivial day-to-day stresses of life and allow a calm to overtake my body. When painting from life I am surrounded by the feel, sounds and smells of the particular subject. At the end of the day I feel “good tired” but am also energized and refreshed and already am imagining my next painting.
I paint because I have to. I am constantly looking at life and imagining how I would paint it, using my pallet, simplifying the shapes and examining the relationships between forms. Whether I paint a landscape or a portrait, my dramatic use of color, shadow and form immortalize that image. Engrossed in creating art since I was a child, I experience the brush and canvas as my personal method of observing. Capturing these observations, like the vitality in a landscape or the life story in someone’s face, is always rewarding and exciting.
I invite you to observe the world with me.
About the Artist:
Bernice was born on June 14, 1954 in University Heights Ohio. She studied fine art at Ohio State University, The Cleveland Institute of Art and U.C. Berkeley. For the majority of her adult life Bernice has been employed as a graphic artist. She resides in Berkeley California. About my Figures
“Who is that?” I often ask myself while looking through stacks of old black and white photos. Their fascinating fixed gestures and expressions, their outmoded glasses and clothing evoke in me a sense of the ridiculous, the absurd, and oddly, nostalgia for those times, the late forties, fifties and sixties.
I relate strongly to that era. I am drawn to its style and sensibility—which has shaped the music I love, the clothes I like to paint and the ambiance of my home. Life used to be simpler then and I like to recapture that simplicity in my portraits. And I enjoy the humorous contrast between then and now.
These old photographs, interpreted impressionistically, form the basis for my paintings. I use color to emphasize the humorous, provocative, and riveting qualities of each face or style of dress. I am alert to the nature of color and the often overlooked lines that separate areas of color. My brush strokes are broad, establishing flat areas of pigment that contrast with the detailed faces.
I paint because I have to. I see people and feel like I have to record them in my style. In this case, the old photographs compelled me to revive the characters captured long ago. They are not portraits of people we know personally, they are depictions of mankind. You don’t have to know them personally to recognize the loving connections and the humorous quirks common to all.
Selected Review
On The Wall
East Bay Express
Our critics weigh in on local art.
Article Published Dec 8, 2004
Different People, Different Places -- A third-grade class of goofs, misfits, and buckteeth smiles at you from a wall in the Fourth Street Studio this week, demanding a smirk of recognition and sympathy. Berkeley artist Bernice Gross has a thing for '40s, '50s, and '60s portraits rendered large in acrylic pastels. Expect to meet those forgotten aunts and uncles in tacky formal dress from your childhood. And there's your fat jowly old social studies teacher! Gross' love for her subjects wafts sweetly from these horrifyingly accurate snippets of posed American arcana. If David Sedaris could paint, this might be the hilarious result. Bravo. -- D2 (Through Dec. 13 at 1717-D Fourth St., Berkeley; 510-527-0600.)
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