________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cindy Bernhard
Smoke and Prayers

September 4th - October 2nd, 2021

Richard Heller Gallery is pleased to present Cindy Bernhard’s first exhibition with the gallery, ‘Smoke and Prayers’ opening September 4th to October 2nd, 2021.

What can painting still do in 2021, you might ask. At the hands of Cindy Bernhard, almost anything. Bernhard, like all true painters, is in love with the pure sensuality of pigments, the visceral effects of paint upon the canvas. You see this in the stunning color of the paintings, but also in the patterns and shapes.

Joints and Jesus (2021), at first appears to be a cute and cheeky portrayal of a cat captured in an act of genital licking through the reflection of a mirror on a mantelpiece. It's a clever painting within a painting, a trope you might find in Van Eyck or Vermeer. It is only with further reflection (pun intended) that we realize this is an altarpiece. The smoke of the “holy incense” is provided by a joint smoldering at the center of the picture.

Another startled cat, this critter with one blue and one yellow eye, meets our gaze in Momento Mori (2021). The joke here is that it's the joint that's died, the head of which has fallen from the table and is burning out on the beautifully painted carpet beneath. The cat alerts us to the problem, made all the more dire by the amusing presence of a classic memento mori skull at the far end of a pastel blue table. But you might also argue that the real memento mori in this picture is the pink butthole of the startled cat. That's to say, this is a painting of dualisms, of the dark that always comes with the light, of the corruption at the heart of all beauty, of the inevitable passing away of all that seems vibrant and new.

The paintings of Cindy Bernhard are veritably crackling with tensions, with a palpable sense of mystery that is all the more delectable for being suffused with such a lightly and confidently wielded wit and charm. You're struck initially by these paintings because they are daring and fresh and a treat for the eye. You stay with them because they are genuinely deep.