David Bierk

David Bierk

David Bierk was born in Appleton, Minnesota and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. He studied at the California College of Arts & Crafts in Oakland, California, and subsequently taught art in the Bahamas for several years. He returned to California to study at Humboldt State University in Arcata, where he received an M.F.A. in painting and photography.

Bierk moved to Canada in 1972 and took up a teaching position in Peterborough, Ontario. In 1974 he founded Artspace, an artist-run centre, that he directed until 1987. It was then that he decided to devote himself to the full-time pursuit of his career as an artist. A passionate artist and a prolific exhibitor, Bierk successfully established an international reputation for his work.

David Bierk lived and painted in Peterborough until his death from leukemia in August 2002. In 1998, Bierk was elected a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and in 2002 was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal.

As Donald Kuspit notes in an essay for a Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts publication, titled “David Bierk” 2000, “Bierk’s pictures are elusive, meticulously staged paradoxes: they may be eulogies to art, life, and human nature “ Pg. 16

“Bierk extends his strategy of juxtaposition – the basic postmodern strategy, as has been argued – into eccentric new realms, indeed to a mannerist extreme, as his ingenious comparison of isolated hands holding money and the hands of Vermeer’s woman, holding a balance for weighing money. Does Bierk ever really attain a perfect balance with his juxtapositions? Not exactly. He achieves a manneristic sense of occult balance – of judiciously placed asymmetries, which do not so much balance each other as confront each other across the divide of time in such a way that their at-oddness is held in suspense. “ pg. 22

Bierk successfully introduced a fresh postmodern approach to creating art in Canada by re-examining and re-working old master painting with the integration of photography, modern painting style, text, collage, and metal construction to create a uniqueness of form that had crossed boundaries of postmodern art making. Bierk’s pictures are a celebration of Master painters-Vermeer, Masaccio, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Van Gogh, Matisse, Gauguin, Catlin, Kahlo, de Chirico, etc,

Credits:
Essay and text credited to Donald Kuspit, Text taken from David Bierk exhibition catalogue, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama, 2000, written by Donald Kuspit.

Solo Exhibitions:

2002
Evansville Museum of Arts & Science, Evansville, IN
Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault Ste. Marie, ON
MacLaren Art Centre, Barrie, ON
Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough

2001
Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montreal, QC
Las Vegas Art Museum, Las Vegas, NV
Telfair Academy of Arts & Science, Savannah, GA
Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, ON
Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN

2000
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL
Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, NY
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, ON
Monte Clark Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1999
David Bierk, Galerie de Bellefeuille, Montréal, QC
Associated American Artists, New York , NY
Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis, TN.
Galerie St. Laurent & Hill, Ottawa, ON
Mira Godard Gallery, Toronto, ON
Fassbender Gallery, Chicago, IL
Meredith Long & Company, Houston, TX

1998
Associated American Artists, New York, NY
Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC.
Gallery l’Autre Équivoque, Ottawa, ON
Weber Fine Art, Scarsdale, NY

1997
Leedy-Voulkos Galleries, Kansas City, MI
Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis. TN
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1996
Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Associated American Artists, New York, NY
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1995
Associated American Artists, New York, NY
Jan Baum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
International Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON

1994
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC

1993
Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
University of Waterloo Art Gallery, Waterloo, ON
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON

1992
Diane Farris Gallery, Vancouver, BC
Struve Gallery, Chicago, IL
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON
Arts Court Gallery, Ottawa, ON

1991
Art Gallery of Algoma, Sault-Sainte-Marie, ON
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, ON
Felicita Foundation, San Diego, CA

1990
Wynick / Tuck Gallery, Toronto, ON
Susan Whitney Gallery, Regina, SK
Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, NY
Jan Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA