Shaun Berke “Sacrosanct”
November 7 – 30, 2014.
Opening Reception: Friday, November 7th, 8-11 PM
with Patrick V. McGrath Muñiz’s “Sacro Consumo”
La Luz de Jesus Gallery
Painted with loose, deliberate brushstrokes, Shaun Berke’s women are intimate depictions of the collapse of an ideological system. His paintings exhibit knowledge of classical composition which he molds to fit the requirements of his own fascination. This reconstruction is informed with sensuality and an awareness of spiritual texts which manage to contemporize and re-cast Christian dogma
Rather than angling his faces in such a way as to recall the works of Rembrandt, Berke often chooses a direct eye line between subject and viewer. The line of demarcation between brightly illuminated and shadowy areas seems to be the product of thrust rather than the genteel comfort of a planned sitting. By dramatizing the division of overwhelming clarity and brooding duskiness, Shaun impresses a diary of stolen moments into classic portraiture.
Shaun Berke is delirious. An all-time old-time pleasure-monger. Slower; look too fast and you’ll miss it.
He started by getting born about 28 or 9 years ago in Larrabee County, a mythical small town above the San Fernando valley. A long time later, he went to art school at Art Center College of Design, following which he was apprenticed to a mentor in the traditional manner. Now he runs a painting workshop for his alma mater, then goes home to paint some more in his north-light-lit cave in Pasadena. Along the way he joined The Getty Research Institute, lectured at Moorpark College, acted as teaching assistant to his mentor in Venice (the one in Italy), and was given awards by the Westlake Village Art Guild, Thousand Oaks Art Association, Society of Illustrators, American Illustration, and Alyce De Roulet Williamson.
His hobbies are working as a janitor and building shrines to gods I can’t remember anymore.
L.Solomon
Speak Don’t Speak
Visit Shaun Berke’s website
