AMY BERNAYS

I have been painter for over 20 years. I paint because I have to. I paint to help me process life. I paint to answer questions. I paint the things my mind ruminates on; my children’s lives, our beautiful world, the dreams that wriggle into our conscious mind, the look of plans I might want to have. I paint to define my consciousness.

It feels like another world ago, but I started my art career in London at Chelsea School of Art and Central St Martins. I almost lost the will to paint. I ran out West to become a cowgirl. For work I lived and breathed horses, I managed a dude ranch, I trained animals in Hollywood and then boring real estate to pay the bills. I have filled my life with the things that are in my paintings. Painting for me is a very badly paid part time job:-/ I do it because I have to. I wake up thinking in color and gesture and lines that wriggle up my spine.

One moonlight night the ranch I woke to scribble out an ink drawing of a scene from my memory, a gruesome image that still haunts me. I sold it in London and it paid my rent for a month. That was a good month.

I am now a mother, a wife, a washer of dirty hands and smiling faces, a baker of bread and preparer of pack lunches. But my need to paint persists. My following is steady but growing. But you should know that I am not beloved by galleries. I change too much. I will stumble upon a successful formula, paint one perfect painting and then try something new. I don’t practice so much as forge my work. I am not ready to settle on one method, one style; and that makes me a bigger risk for collectors, I fully accept that. But I have a long life ahead of me (hopefully) and I am making art for the love of good paintings.