Lot 16
RACHEL BERMAN (1946-2014)
Additional Images
Provenance:
Ingram Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Ontario
Note:
Rachel Berman is a painter and children’s book illustrator who has lived and worked in Canada, the United States, and Ireland. Her work is primarily focused on portraiture delivered intimately: figures in anonymous rooms, workers on the job, bored groups in waiting rooms or at the kitchen table - often posed to confront the viewer as if in conversation. The mysterious figures are perhaps a reflection of her own uneasy identity (she was raised by foster parents as Susan King, before discovering her birth parents at the age of 52 and cheerfully re-claiming her lost identity). In her street scenes, the viewer is more withdrawn, peopled by figures preoccupied with their own lives. They are vibrant, bright vignettes, bustling along with a frail energy. Berman’s practice is a poignant exploration of the breadth of lived experience.