about tina berning
Berning is a Berlin-based artist whose practice is largely concerned with the female form, weaving a visual dialogue between female identity and a long history of imposed femininity. With the use of watercolour, collage and sometimes thread, Berning deconstructs existing aesthetic frameworks of women as perceived in the fashion and beauty industries.
The women in Tina’s work are always gracefully depicted, yet their beauty remains imperfect. Figures hover on the page, lacking any context or environment to indicate who these women are. Often, single words like Hide or Undo float in the air above the weightless figures, offering the only narrative. The studied gestures often refer to compulsion and repression. The elegant women usually found on glossy magazines instead appear on yellowed, torn or scrap paper. Berning rescues text books, ledger paper, shopping lists and old record sleeves from flea markets and estate sales to render visible the traces of aging, transience or death.
Warm Storm, 2019 Acrylic, charcoal, china ink and thread on paper 60” x 50”
10/08/19 Fleur II, 2019 Mixed Media, staples on Found Paper 11.75” x 8.25”
Remake Routinier, 2009 Ink and Gouache on paper 29.5” x 24.75”
Tina Berning in Studio
The Pearl In Studio
0723/20 Flood tina berning ink and acrylic on found paper 29.5” x 25”
Blow Up In Situ
07/22/20 Here We Go tina berning Ink and gouache on found paper 11.75” x 8.25”
Neighbors tina berning ink, crayon and acrylic on paper 29.5” x 25”
Tina Berning + Michelangelo Di Battista
A collaboration between photographer Michelangelo Di Battista and illustration artist Tina Berning, Confluence II is a body of work merging photography, illustration, painting and collage which highlights the multi- faceted nature of female beauty.
Given a single photographic image and one attempt to reinvent it, Berning manipulates Di Battista’s ditone prints by scratching their surfaces, adding layers of paint or cutting them to pieces.
