Four delicately suspended creatures, mixtures of angel, bird, butterfly and human, hung next to a window in the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center.
Made of stainless steel frames covered in digitally printed fabric, these pieces are a part of Edward Bernstein’s show “Angels, Ghosts, & Inconvenient Events.” The opening took place Friday, Jan. 29, and the show will run through Feb. 20.
The “Reluctant Angels” took more than three years to complete. “Guardian Angel,” with a multi-faceted face inspired by classic Italian art, was the first in the series in 2009, and “Avenging Angel,” “Icarus” and “Nemesis” followed.
“They represent the good, bad, fanciful, hopeful, all of the aspects of human life.” Bernstein said.
Bernstein retired from his position as head of printmaking at IU in August 2013. Now, he continues to run the summer printmaking program in Venice, Italy, that he founded, and he is an active artist.
German artist Anselm Kiefer, who incorporated German myth and World War II history into his paintings and sculptures, inspired Bernstein. Bernstein said he enjoys making art that is interesting visually but also contains deeper meanings that require the viewer to think.
“A lot of my work is very subtle, but there are a lot of socio-political messages,” Bernstein said. “I don’t like the kind of political art that hits you over the head.”
Several of the prints and paintings in the show contain images of chandeliers, referencing the chandeliers of Murano, an island neighboring Venice. The tradition dates back more than 500 years to the Renaissance, and now the the custom has been cheapened by foreign knockoffs, Bernstein said.
The mixed media piece “Warrior” discusses violence in today’s society and is a mixture of digital prints of graffiti found around Bloomington layered with painting and drawing.
Bernstein said he is most drawn to this piece in the show because it is one of his most recent works and is moving his style in a new direction.
“I’m an artist who makes prints, but I also make sculptures, I work three-dimensionally, I draw,” Bernstein said. “I think about what I want to do and then I decide how to make it.”
Bernstein said he is planning on going back to what he taught at IU, which is etching. He said he is excited to be in good health and to have the time to continue what he loves to do.
“I just want to make art,” Bernstein said.
