SPAZUK/BERNARDI

Combining elements, capturing the invisible connections that unite fragments of existence, stopping time, intercepting movement, harnessing chaos, freezing waves, revealing the imprints of life. The Spazuk/Bernardi collaboration brings together two artists from different generations, both harnessing the elements, and nature as the primal aspects of their creative process. Both ‘paint with light’ — Bernardi breaks down the photographic process to its core, using only light and water to create photograms. These contact prints, created in darkness illuminate the true nature of the fossil- like imprints, captured by the physical presence of the subjects themselves. Spazuk’s fumage process of painting with fire layers a fragile film of black carbon on the photograms. His masterful sculpting of this soot reveals images shaped by a light that glows against the watery surface of the silver-gelatine photographic paper, enkindling a sense of wonderment and whimsy. Their approaches stem from a similar intention to capture imprints of natural phenomena. They both explore different states of matter, one water, and the other fire. With a meticulous focus on the elusive, the collaboration provides an endless visual landscape to explore a vast chaotic entanglement of light and dark for one to get lost in, inviting viewers into a psychedelic state of observance, a pareidolic trance. The duo’s innovative and collaborative explorations create ethereal imprints by capturing traces of water, fire, earth, air, time, space, chaos and movement... in essence, Life.

Their work is an ode to the ephemeral, to impermanence. A reflection of Nature’s circumstance beautifully fated, both in light and dark. Laden with a profound and ever-present awareness of the fragility of natural order, the duo Spazuk/Bernardi, partner with the natural world to express their reverence towards it.