Emerik Bernard studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana and established himself as one of the central figures in Slovenian painting in the 1980s. He was strongly influenced by the contemporary debates about modernism and postmodernism, which radically transformed the art of that period.

Bernard’s points of departure are the fundamental principles of abstract painting, where a painting is a material object before us, while at the same time carrying the emotional and symbolic value invested in it by the artist. Unlike the abstract painters of the 1970s – such as Šušnik or Gnamuš – Bernard introduced various materials in his works, often using the technique of collage. At first glance, his canvases seem like uniform color surfaces, but upon closer scrutiny we notice that they are composed of fabrics, cardboard, wood and other materials, which are then covered in paint to form a homogenous whole.

The artist often described his works as “palimpsests,” using the term for parchments on which later writing was superimposed on effaced earlier writing. Similarly, Bernard’s paintings contain numerous elements from the everyday world, in particular motifs of architecture and landscape from his beloved Istria, where he also found inspiration for his colors.

Unlike the painters in the 1970s, who strictly observed the pictorial field, Bernard saw a painting as an organism that should not be confined within the traditional rectangular format. His paintings thus often transcend the boundaries of the canvas, entering into the space and creating a dynamic visual experience.