Kristin Bjornerud
At first I thought that I was looking at some new Amy Cutler illustrations…
Kristin Bjornerud’s watercolour and gouache paintings similarly explore contemporary political themes, ecological motifs, and personal narratives through a feminine lens of folktales, dreams, and magical realism. Ms. Bjornerud describes her delicately painted tableaus as a world “wherein dream logic pervades, where women swim with narwhals and vivify hand-knit fauna. These eccentric landscapes are uncanny projections of a possible world where familiar activities are imbued with a mythic quality while, at the same time extraordinary deeds are carried out with unruffled poise by proud, unconventional heroines.”
This style of art is very poetic to me. These images, like poetry allow one to see invisible threads that connect things, in introspective ways and occasionally with a bit of clever humour.
In the vein of Cutler, Bjornerud’s illustrations born on an expanse of white, create contemporary surrealist fairy tales that “act as a medium through which we may consider our ethical obligations to the natural world and to each other”. Bjornerud finds that “retelling and reshaping stories helps us to understand how we are entangled, where we meet, and how our differences may be viewed as disguises of our sameness.”
Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Kristin Bjornerud earned her MFA at the University of Saskatchewan (2005), her BFA from the University of Lethbridge (2002), and is the recipient of several grants from the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Her work is included in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Citibank Canada. She currently lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.
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