...“ I try not to work with a formula. With each painting I must accept the possibility of failure because the process of creating art cannot be based on a formula. ”... | ||
| - Bernd Haussmann | ||
| - Public Collections - | ||
| Danforth Museum of Art, Framingham, MA | ||
| Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ | ||
| Longview Museum of Fine Arts, Longview, TX | ||
| Lyman Allyn Museum, New London, CT | ||
| Montserrat College of Art, Beverly, MA | ||
| Museum der Stadt Reutlingen, Reutlingen, Germany | ||
| Provincetown Art Association Museum, Provincetown, MA | ||
| - Reviews - | ||
| Bernd Haussmann has been featured as one of the top ten artists showing in Atlanta by Art News International. "So the whole world stands back and watches in amazement as Atlanta's new and powerful populace breaks out their iPhones to transfer funds to these incredible artists as they beautify those ultramodern walls of the future. | ||
| Alexus Maintenon, Art News International, September 2007 | ||
| BERND HAUSSMANN RECOLLECT Few artists have the courage to begin every work of art on a clean slate, with no preliminary plan whatsoever. Fewer still can do so and maintain total integrity. Bernd Haussmann faces the nothingness that is blank canvas, wood, metal, or other surfaces, and listens to his thoughts until a direction appears in his mind. Then he picks up his brush, and a subtle conversation begins. “As people get to know each other by talking,” he says, “I get to know the painting by painting it.” At a certain point, the dialog resolves itself and a work of art is revealed as a record of that process. Haussmann builds up layers that hint at something beneath the surface. That something may be psychological, or may go even deeper and allude to eternal verities. Various forms appear, some positioned as color fields that organize the composition and some looped organically like recurring memories. Staccato blips underscore the electric chirr and crackle of contemporary consciousness that brings the work alive. As Haussmann proceeds, the dialog is widened to include the eventual viewer. The painting becomes accessible in the sense that it furnishes suggestions and invites participation. “There is always an underlying principle that I want to share with you,” he says. “What you make of it depends on what information I put into the painting. This is important for the way I look at art or life in general. It doesn’t necessarily mean I know the truth, but I make my doubts and questions and my very strong opinions visible – almost surgically bare, if one looks closely. The more information and energy I put into the painting, the more it will resonate with the viewer. Painting, to me, is an energy exchange as well as a communication. A lot of people feel some connection when they look at my art.” Haussmann makes no distinction between his life and his art. “I am who I am,” he says, “and that is what I paint. I live my art. Art is a lifestyle – it is what I believe, and it defines me even as I create it. What is important to me is sharing my thoughts and beliefs, and keeping an eye on the cultural and political and social environment as our earth progresses.” The physical environment is a matter of intense concern as well. Haussmann divides his time between the Boston area and rural Maine, where he contributes to the building of a nature preserve and creates environmental sculptures. His paintings, though rigorously abstract, reflect that same dedication. They are saturated with the atmosphere of the natural world. “I want to show you the fragile environment, the intensity of connection that you experience when you go outdoors,” says Haussmann. “I hope to make people more sensitive, more aware, more critical of the world that surrounds us.” His paintings shimmer in silence while the conversation that produced them continues, communicating many shades and nuances of information to each person who pauses to interact with them. | ||
| Suzanne Deats, Maine, Spring 2006 | ||
| … “Painting is not about what you see, it is about what you don’t see”, he says. Such thought is ripe for angst-ridden expression, yet Haussmann’s paintings exude serenity and provide a space for quiet reflection. … | ||
| Debbie Hagan, Art New England, Winter 2003 | ||
| … Several of the Open Heart series are inspired and their marks, a snakey green weed growing from right to left, a punctured white/blue oval shape and red undulating bands, resemble things we've seen while remaining nothing but themselves. … These Open Hearts have an affinity with Robert Motherwell's spontaneous ink drawings, the plant drawings of Joseph Beuys and Cy Twombley's collages. Not bad company to keep. | ||
| William Corbett, artsMEDIA, Summer 2002 | ||
| … More than a few paragraphs in a book, each painting really is like dipping your foot now and again in a stream: It may be the same stream, but it's a new experience each time. … | ||
| Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 7/19/2002 | ||
| … The artist belongs in the lineage of abstract expressionists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Willem de Kooning, who emblazoned their souls on canvas with paintbrushes. … | ||
| Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 10/26/2001 | ||
| … Haussmann’s formal painterly abilities are as powerful on wood, steel, canvas, plaster or paper. | ||
| Eileen Kennedy, artsMEDIA, Spring 2000 | ||
| … The single blade of grass in his paintings holds the energy of the human torso. The collage element in his work represents the integration of the human body. … The duality of the forms calls to mind the separate, yet intimately linked relationship of humans and nature, passion and order, life and death. … | ||
| Barbara O?Brien, 1999 | ||
| Haussmann’s pieces provide a balm … This artist has a lexicon of images for his philosophies, which he draws with a painterly hand. … They stand amid layers of pale paint like newborn sprouts, arguing against hope that not everything on earth is going to hell in a handbasket. | ||
| Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 9/25/1997 | ||
| Bernd Haussmann uses an alphabet of icons to spell out visceral messages. … The artist makes no proclamations here, just painterly intimations of wholeness and peace – things, after all, so fragile and subtle that a proclamation would chase them away. | ||
| Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe, 8/14/1997 | ||