Apart
from mentioning his Dutch origin, his rigorous academic training
and the whole of his "intimate" career as an artist facing
nature... I mean UNIVERSAL NATURE in capital letters: to speak
about August Bernaerts one must penetrate into a very deep
well which, like an iceberg, is revealed suddenly and unexpectedly
through his subconscious and is convincingly expressed in
his artistic creation... although in an unfaltering way and
faithful to his personality, that is to say: profound.
Paradoxically,
the academicism of Bernaerts perishes when faced with his
overpowering autodidactic self.
While
the artist's surrealistic, super realistic, figurative and
abstract trends are expressed and intermingle in his work,
they are rigorously governed by the solid criterion that he
essentially suffers for humanity and its obvious "lack of
harmony with nature". This is the essence of August Bernaerts
and the consequence of his painting: his works are deeply
charged with compassion for the world, the concern that only
from the introverted isolation of "special" persons can they
be discerned as truly natural "rarities". In the case of a
painter such as he is, it is expressed by a complex speech
transmitted to us through his language of colours and forms:
Displayed
with emotion and emerging from an ethereal and spiritual world,
the colours are the constant hallmark of his expression as
they flow through grievance, fear, sadness, hope, desire or
joy...
The
clouds are a good "thermometer" of his state of being and
of the "story" that accompanies the criticism he depicts in
each work; he tells us of turbulence, wars, passions, peace,
dreams and even memories.
The
human forms are sharply defined when he wants them to be the
protagonists, so too is the poignant expression of a poor
woman begging, while the body is forgotten...
The
light, in contrast with the greys, greens, ochres, blues,
blacks, reds... presides over the whole, in conflict with
them and revealing mystical inspirations, possibly as a last
resort of hope.
The
architecture and the real objects, although our artist has
great domination over them, only appear in symbolic form like
the message in "the broken atmosphere", in which a demolished
building is compared with the decline of our planet. - Could
it be that we, the creators, are also the sons of a father
and the brothers of everyone and of everything that surrounds
us?
I
read in the work of August Bernaerts a deep sentiment which,
from its microcosms, is fraternally being offered to us, like
a persistent morse code message to humanity; the culmination
of his work resides understanding the message and in the deep
admiration that forms part of discovering it.
Signed:
Luis Marcelo de Valenzuela
Vice-president
of the organization for the defence of historic-artistic and
natural heritage.
|