Negra Bernhard
1986 in Banja Luka, BIH.
2017-2022 Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Prof. Daniel Richter)
lives and works in Vienna, AT.
Could you tell us more about your background and how you began creating art?
I was born in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1986. In April 1992 I emigrated with my family to Austria due to the Bosnian War. From an early age I felt very close to the arts. I started dancing ballet at the age of four and already as a small child I was infatuated with books, music and drawing. Later followed a longer phase of rhythmic gymnastics, as well as capoeira and yoga. Apart from some of these physical and one bigger mental deviation, which was studying physics, drawing, and later on more and more painting, was the most consistent and central passion that, alongside the occasional djing and music making, has crystallized into what I am happily spending most of my life with today.
What does your art aim to say to its viewers?
I think my paintings are asking questions rather than giving answers. Also my engagement with art is a searching one, sometimes slightly the unifying of contradictions. For instance my work can be dark to some extent and perhaps even harbor a certain nihilism, but it always shows a hope that may not be immediately apparent. As well as the other way around, like a very beautiful but broken vase, perhaps aiming to see the beautiful in the ugly or the ugly in the beautiful.
Can you tell us about the process of creating your work? What is your daily routine when working?
Since I am currently about to complete my studies under Daniel Richter at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and am already working in my own studio and no longer at the University’s shared one, I am starting to notice that my work is becoming progressively personal. Above all, my dreams and intimate life experiences are increasingly finding their way into the content of my motifs, which I am feeling more and more confident with. My daily routine is rather unspectacular. I think a lot, read, listen to music, jot down some of my ideas and thoughts until I have a reasonably clear picture of a possible painting. Sometimes I also pursue very spontaneous visions, these are usually painted quickly. In the end, one work-day is pretty much the same as the other, but I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.
What is the essential element in your art?
The air in paintings is very important to me. Beyond that I favor rather unusual color palettes and somewhat hidden personal stories, which is also what fascinates me in the work of other artists. Eventually the attempt to ever innovate painterly aspects is of course one of my main concerns as well as creating my own alphabet in terms of painterly elements.
In your opinion, what role does the artist have in society?
Regardless of how aware you are of it, and of course the more the better, the artist has a great responsibility towards society. I think artists play a perhaps often unforeseen but in the end huge role in shaping society and its people in slumbering gentle and at times subversive ways, whether they want it or not is irrelevant because it just happens. That’s exactly why I try not to be pedagogical in my work, but to encourage the viewer to think independently and freely. In short I wish to inspire with painterly poetry.
