Biography of Becca Bernstein

Becca Bernstein earned a BA in Drawing, cum laude, at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She also studied at the University of Glasgow and interned at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Bernstein was selected by Southwest Art Magazine in 2008 as one of 21 emerging artists to watch. She won the Kimberley Gales Emerging Artist Award in 2005, the Lake Oswego Public Art Award in 2007, and the George Sugarman Foundation Grant in 2007 for socially conscious artists. Her work can be found in the public collections of the City of Lake Oswego, Oregon, the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, the Northwest Business for Culture and the Arts and the Oregon Ballet Theater. She is represented by the Phoenix Gallery in Park City, Utah and Gallery Heinzel in Aberdeen, Scotland. Bernstein also earned a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council for her 2008 conceptual installation at the Portland Building. She is mentioned in Art in America magazine for her awards.

Bernstein's work focuses on human relationships, family, and aging. She explores issues of human fragility and strength in what she describes as "the awkward dance of human interdependence." Bernstein has also worked closely with residents of senior long-term care homes in Oregon and Scotland since 1998. In her 2008 artist's statement for The Last Room she wrote, "I am witness to the modern anomaly of dividing the tribe?of the separation of generations from one another, each to their respective institutions. As an artist, my interest in this subject has led me to seek out communities of all kinds for my work, both traditional and uniquely present-day, exploring the relationships we have developed or abandoned in this contemporary age."