Bernard was born in Alicante in 1964 into a family of artists — his father and sister both professional painters — and grew up dividing his time between the family studio and the sea. Offered a place at the Academy of Fine Arts in Alcoi, he began to specialise in seascapes: the subject that combined everything that had shaped him, the visual and the visceral experience of water and light inseparable from each other in his practice.
His paintings combine impressionism and abstraction in a way that is entirely his own. The sea and sky are rendered with open, spontaneous brushwork — swirling blues of genuine atmospheric depth, the paint applied with the freedom of the early Impressionists who understood that light is never still and that painting it requires a corresponding quality of movement in the mark. The boats that dominate his foregrounds are treated differently: semi-abstract, built from jewel-like mosaics of ochre, magenta, and pale green that vibrate with colour energy rather than describing form literally. The two approaches coexist on the same canvas, the tension between them generating the light and joie de vivre that his work consistently achieves.
"I have sailed since childhood and I wanted to communicate the sheer exhilaration of racing across the sea," he has said. "The feeling of the wind rushing past you, the way the sunlight and shadows create such amazing colours, the taste of the sea — the whole experience is a joyful feast for the senses and I try to convey all of these feelings in my paintings."
His London and Venice series — available through Creed Gallery alongside his seascapes — bring the same painterly intelligence to urban subjects, finding in the specific quality of light on the Thames and on the Grand Canal the same atmospheric richness he has always found on the open water. Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.
