Bernie Reid solo show – Ornamental Breakdown
Influenced by the anti-style graffiti movement and the work of Italian futurist Fortunato Depero the new Bernie Reid show at Edinburgh Printmakers aims to push stencil art and the decorative in a new direction.
The Edinburgh-based artist’s body of work over his career includes mixed media paintings, trompe l’oeil decorative rugs, graphic screen prints and sculpture.
Reid’s work has been shown internationally in galleries which include MOMA New York, SFMOMA, 019 in Ghent, Serpentine Galleries in London, Garage Museum in Moscow and on the island of Stromboli for the Fiorucci Art Trust.
We spoke to him just after the exhibition was hung to find out about his process. Listen to our conversation on The Edinburgh Report here.
Reid lived in Wester Hailes although he now comes from Leith, and somewhere in his past he admits he was a graffiti artist, although he defends himself saying: “I wasn’t as prolific as my friends and contemporaries, but the stencil, guerrilla, graffiti look pretty much took off for me as soon as I finished college.” He was a late starter, going to Edinburgh College of Art as a mature student, then had to engage an agent in London.
The work on show is his first in the Printmakers but all are really unique. Some are on paper and one section is art applied to non-slip vinyl safety flooring or an actual rug. He explained how that had come about: “I sometimes paint trompe l’oeil rugs with stencils. The original idea was painting those directly on floors, or outside on pavements. Some galleries don’t want me to paint directly on their floor so I started using different linos.”
He also uses canvas and other materials to spray paint onto, and another technique he uses is to paint in oils on paper as a background before applying spray paint. He said: “For me it is exploring figurative work, a journey through a figure, adding elements and using my old stencils until something begins to appear.”
He also admits that there are many works in the bin in his studio which he has rejected even though others might like them. He said: ‘it is amazing what people tell me they have seen in my work.”
He does have a rough idea what the artwork will look like when finished, but he is quite blasé about any involvement of talent in his work. He said: “The process is quite deliberately a mystery to me. That’s part of the fun of it, or the tension that it might work it might not. It is like an adrenaline sport sometimes.”
Ornamental Breakdown runs until 16 March at Edinburgh Printmakers and there will be a programme of artists talks.
