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The dynamic interaction between glass and clay, water and earth...
Nina has been working on ceramics for more than fifteen years, opening her first studio in 1993. After getting her bachelor's degree in Fine Arts, she focused her attention on the development of "Utilitarian Art"; art that she defines as the creation of unique objects meant to be not only admired but also used every day.
Having been raised in a culture where color is an expression of the picturesque environment, her work is a mixture of vivid tropical colors, memories of her childhood, the translucency of the Caribbean sea and a deep influence of the native pre-Columbian cultures. The influence of some European artists can also be seen in her work. From Paul Klee, and his approach to some sense of primitivism in children's art and their freedom to create signs; to Huntertwasser, and his use of color like an architecture of the space and from Niki de Saint Phalle, the use of vivid colors and the sense of freedom from her monumental figures.
Currently Nina has a studio in her Southern home, where she works mainly in the refinement of the technique that she has been developing for years, the combination of ceramics with fused glass, technique that she applies to Plates, Platters, Chargers, Coasters, Trivets, Bread Boxes and Spaghetti Boxes. Each piece is made out of a thick slab of earthenware clay and carved (not thrown) to its final form. Once all of the features are individually engraved and polished by hand, the ceramic object is meticulously fired several times to achieve its combination of stain colors and fused glass while maintaining its original porosity and texture.
The result is an extreme range of colors, from bright orange to earthy brown, the contrast between the depth and transparency of a blue pool of glass and the hard and stony surface of the clay, reminders of some ancient civilization.
In the "blue fish" and "cactuses on the islands" series, the theme is the sea, the images are fishes seen from a child's eyes, and the pools of crackled glass evoke rebuilt long-lost dreams and colors of underwater gardens, the graphs are the spontaneous strokes of my emotions etched into the crude clay.
Bernardi’s work speaks of ingenuity, happiness, the dreams and pleasant memories of a remote childhood and an infinite number of already-told stories. As objects of art, meant to be used daily, they open the door to a dialog between her stories, told thorough glass and clay, and the stories of whom uses them every day.
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