Biography
Born in Paris in 1945, Hervé Bernard has led three careers. First, as a company executive, in the ACCOR corporation, then at V.V.F. and finally at the Deposits and Consignments Fund. Simultaneously, as a high-level mountain-climber, and finally as a painter, with abstracts works first and then hyperrealistic ones.
Even though drawing and painting were always activities he led parallel to his other two careers, it is really in the 1980s that he realized the importance of his artistic vocation. The dazzling colors of Piet MONDRIAN’s grids and the mathematical exactness / rigor of François MORELLET’s made him realize what his line of work would be. His travels in Europe, in the Middle East and in Asia also led him to develop an interest in mural ceramic. Yet another type of grid, whether it is Byzantine and spiritually abstract, or Portuguese and narrative. He has met numerous artists, and developed a friendship with Gérard SCHLOSSER. He has also learnt a lot on the techniques and different means and tools which would later be necessary for the achievement of his future projects. But his numerous activities kept him from dedicating himself fully to painting.
The turning point came up with the 9/11 attack in New York, which caused a long-term disturbance in global tourism activity. On the following year, he includes himself in the redundancy scheme he is asked to supervise and fires himself.
His life as a painter can really begin. He has adopted the hyperrealistic genre, thus committing himself to a pictorial movement which was born in the 1960s in the United States, and to which he applies the demanding discipline that characterized his first abstract works.
First exhibitions of his works started in 2005. As he is aware that he has a limited time to create works, due to a rather late start in a genre – hyperrealism – which is so time-demanding, Hervé Bernard has convinced himself that it would be hard for him to build a profuse production. He has therefore decided to limit the subject of his works to a nature devoid of human traces and to urban solitudes. His paints a few works every year.
He has joined the “Figuration Critique” pictorial movement, a group of artists who advocate for figurative expression. He is also a member of the NARRO Group, which brings together artists who all claim they belong to a figurative art where narration is at the center of the work.
Hervé Bernard lives and works in Ardèche.