Bernie Clarkson moved south after completing a BA and an MFA at Newcastle University, her home town, and has a studio close to her home in East London. She works primarily as a painter. Her work has covered a multitude of styles with shifts in style often coinciding with surroundings and circumstances. The American artist Richard Diebenkorn continues to be a huge influence on her and her attitude to her work.
Bernie works from photographs; recently her focus has been the North East coastline. Land, sea and sky offer a backdrop to an anonymous figure or figures, which are often painted in a semi-abstract style. The beach as a place of arrival or departure, suggest notions of home; Bernie uses small totemic images of cottages and lighthouses as markers of home.
In 2015 Bernie won the Academy Studios Abroad Prize for the painting ‘Looking Back.’ This painting was a signature piece exploring autobiographical elements of home, relationships and the empty nest. The prize gave her the opportunity to paint in the French countryside, en plein aire, which in turn created a new shift in her work. [Magazine Article]
White Horizon No.2
This is the 2nd painting in a triptych using a white horizon as a point of interest.
White Horizon No.1
This painting, oil on board, is one of three images linked by the title White Horizon. The painting has changed over time and has moved from showing two figures
Pink Sky Behind the Lighthouse
Living in London can sometimes give you a very urban experience and nature and a sense of the land can feel distant. Coming from Newcastle the north east coast
Red Line Above the Water
I’ve recently embarked on a set of about 20 small paintings where sky, sea and land divide each painting into 3 zones. This will be an exercise in colour
Two Stand in the Water
It’s often a difficult decision to know when a painting is finished. It is often an intuitive moment which brings the need to continue ‘digging out&
Boy in the Water
No.1 No.2 No.3 No.4 No.5 These 5 images are the early chronologies of my new painting ‘Boy in the Water’ which show how a painting not only develops
Birds on Tiles 2012
These birds are painted on 5cm sq. white ceramic tiles and I made them to give as Xmas presents to friends.
Girl in the Yellow Skirt 2015
This painting began life as a very different image and while making a series of ‘beach’ paintings this summer I painted over most of it. The only pa
Life Painting 2015
Images painted quickly using a life model outside The Maker’s Yard during the Walthamstow Art’s Trail 2015.