Biography
Artist Statement
My works emerge from a personal interaction with and reaction to the landscape, the environment, nature and with life. The “Total” experience of what is seen or felt becomes part of the human psyche. During the creative process, that essence is revisited and the emotionality of the subject matter becomes an expressed experience instead of being an internally exclusive one.
The end result the finished work becomes a testimony to a sense of an emotional personal connectedness to that original total experience.
Bernie Masterson / A Brief CV
Bernie Masterson was born in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland in 1958. She graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 1982. She has had solo exhibitions with several galleries e.g. The Dolmen Gallery in Limerick, the Dye-house Gallery in Waterford, the Hallward Gallery Dublin, and the Hunt Museum Limerick.
She has been selected and invited to several group shows for example, the RUA, RHA, Eigse, the Oireachtais, Iontas, Aer Rianta, and the Boyle Arts Festival, are but to name a few.
Masterson has also exhibited abroad - Art Biennial Stockholm, Sweden. Art ’95 New York International Art Exhibition New York USA, Treg’Aquarelle, Tregastel, France and the Old Library Gallery in Cardiff, Wales and more recently in Oakland, Calfornia, USA
She has several awards and residency from the Arts Council, including the Douglas Hyde Gold Medal Award for painting from the Oireachtais.
Her works are in many collections both at home and abroad including the OPW, Limerick County Council, Mircosoft Ireland, Dept of Telecommunication and Regulation, Tyrone Production, and Harcourt Development, Axa Insurance, Fingal County Council, Department of Finance and Personnel, N. Ireland Civil Service, Allied Irish Bank and many more.