Josh Bernstein, Depressa Resurgit, 2008 [Detail]
Josh Bernstein, Depressa Resurgit, 2008, 12″ x 72″, blockprints and photographs on maple (click on image to enlarge)
Sadly Josh Bernstein’s full corn cocks [above] were cut out our new masthead image due to the more favorable aesthetic cropping you see there now. Of course, this hasn’t stopped us from posting the full sized image above additional detail; in addition to finding the surplus of male genitalia around here pleasing, the work simply looses too much detail without a few closeups.
Titled, Depressa Resurgit, [though crushed, it recovers] the piece recalls seasonal crops torn down annually to facilitate regrowth, presumably in this case, from the seed spread by these plants. Photographs document a generally youthful people in rural settings, the horns one figure wears implicating us in a darker side to the life cycle located by the artist.
Josh Bernstein, Gyre, 2008, 14″ x 20″, mixed media
In Gyre, another work vaguely evocative of stills from Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising, Bernstein again evokes the idea of morality, and evolution. Sci-fi references keep the work from reading too far in the direction of self help art, while capitalizing on the aesthetic of the genre, which currently has a fair amount of currency within fine art circles. Meanwhile, the art itself doesn’t pretend to predict the future, but rather points out that these changes all remain within the surface of the earth.
Josh Bernstein Biography
Josh Bernstein was born in Hanover, NH and grew up in Montreal and New Hampshire. In 2000 he received his BA from Amherst College with concentrations in Fine Arts and Physics. In 2008 he received his MFA from Mason Gross School of Art. He currently lives and works in New Jersey.
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