Bernadette Despujols

Recalling the work of Lucian Freud and other members of the London School, the alternating passages of ridged, thick impasto paint and luminescent washes within Despujols’ heavily textured surfaces project their own narrative, charting the contours of flesh and human expression with an almost aggressive materiality. In contrast to the immediacy of her practice, her subjects are enigmatic, and their averted gazes complicate the viewers place.

Bernadette Despujols was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. She studied Architecture at the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), where she graduated with honors in 2007. Soon after, she continued her education at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where she took classes in architecture, cultural exchange, morphology and anatomy before beginning her endeavors in art making. Despujols taught Architectonic Design at the School of Architecture at the Universidad Central de Venezuela before moving to the US to pursue her MFA in Visual Arts at the California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in 2010. Despujols’ artistic practice is highly expansive, as she incorporates a wide range of different media, including painting, sculpture, video and installation.

Courtesy of Freight + Volume