James Bernard
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Limited Editions
Limited edition prints of all James Bernard original artworks are produced on premium museum-grade fine art paper such as MOAB and Hahnamuhle. Each print will be signed, numbered, and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Each work of art will have a limited run, after which no further copies will be sold. Limits for each edition are listed on the product details page, with each print priced accordingly.
WORK IN PROGRESS …
“Hedge of Protection” was inspired by a family photo taken circa 1944 in Cheraw South Carolina. Depicted in the picture are my grandmother, great grandmother, and great aunt on the front porch before (or after?) Sunday services.
As the primary focus of the piece, I have depicted the women as warrior combatants, standing on the front lines of my family’s ancestral protection and strength. Wearing boxing gloves and Dahomeyan tribal masks, they create and maintain the hedge that ensures our survival. The haint blue ceiling planks, Hoodoo bottle tree, and traditional bible work in unison to establish a visual point of reference for the old and new(er) world spiritual cosmologies that have guided Black families with roots in the American South for the past 300 years.
The tattered Stars and Stripes reflected in the window behind them points to the unfulfilled (and steadily unraveling) promise of a nation that neither accepted nor respected us once we broke free of our chains … and yet we continue practicing fidelity to a flawed version of what it could be, loving it through cycles of abuse and neglect … even as it fails to fully love us in return.