Galen Frost Bernard is a painter and lifelong student of the creative process. He was born and raised in beautiful rural Nelson county, Virginia where his New York City mother traded the midwife a cow to help with his arrival. He studied at Warren Wilson College and through extensive travels in the Americas and Southeast Asia. Galen currently lives in Swannanoa, North Carolina while working in the River Arts District of Asheville over the last 24 years.

His expressive abstract landscapes have been shown and collected around the world. He frequently works on many paintings at a time. Treading the line between abstract and representational, his paintings have layers upon layers with words and images hidden in the paint. Galen is driven to make authentic, potent art work.

Statement

My work is about exploring paint and perception. I intend to let the process lead, layering instinctual organic mark-making with deliberate line work, creating a push/pull effect or back and forth between abstraction and representation, between painting and viewer. The visual vocabulary that I’ve developed over the last 36 years references flame and water, mountain and river, debris and structures both human and crystalline.

These paintings seek to add to the mystery, inviting the viewer to enter the painting and therefore themselves. The process of making leads the dance like children playing. I find that time and place and paint are three of the most interesting ingredients. It’s all an offering to the Divine.