I’m pleased to announce Things Change, Things Stay the Same, opening at Richard Telles Fine Art on May 20 and running through July 1 – my first solo gallery exhibition in Los Angeles in 13 years (OMG!). The exhibition features recent watercolors from Vinland in the Beverly space, the LA debut of the complete 100 part Security Envelope Grid (1987-1993) in the Martel space, and a special project for the Martel window that tracks the status of the entities featured in the Grid over the last 30 years.

The exhibition has been reviewed by the Los Angeles Times and was a Pick of the Week in Artillery.
Installation view are online at Richard Telles Fine Art.

Having never painted, I started teaching myself watercolors while at the MacDowell Colony last year. The process quickly evolved into a 123 panel work based on a quilt I’d purchased from a distant relative, Gladys Osmond, while in Newfoundland. About 33 panels in, I realized the paintings had a relationship to my early works: black and white photographs of fabrics resembling abstract paintings (1986) and, photographs of the patterns inside bank envelopes (1987). The “Adjacent Panels” and “All the Panels I Couldn’t Paint” watercolors featured at Telles are both evolutions of the work started at MacDowell.

Cindy Bernard, Security Envelopes installed at MOCA

The 50 part Security Envelope Grid and several small grids were shown at Michael Kohn Gallery in 1988 – my first solo exhibition. I went on to expand the Grid to 75 parts for the 1989 Whitney Biennial and to 100 parts for an exhibition at the CCP at the University of Arizona, Tucson in 1993. The 50 part version was also shown in Cologne, Germany and was last exhibited at MOCA, Los Angeles in 2010.

This exhibition is made possible in part by an NEA Fellowship at the MacDowell Colony, the UCross Foundation and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.