Charles Bierk

Biography & CV | Gallery | website



Seeing a Chuck Close retrospective in New York at the age of 9 no doubt impacted my decision to become a painter, but I had been prepared for this realization since the day I was born. Like a ton of bricks, I was hit by the work - in disbelief of his ability and left completely shocked by his early black and white portraits, I was at once aware of the potential of paint.

Growing up I was surrounded by the images of art history. Copies of Vermeer, Fantin-Latour, de Chirico and Caravaggio covered the walls of my home and father’s studio, our sanctuary. He, an emerging Canadian artist, encouraged me to learn through appropriation, to study the brush strokes and pallets of the worlds greatest artists, some living, but most dead. Visiting his studio after school I would select books from his library and copy whatever I stumbled upon, from Clemente to Close, and I have been painting since these early lessons.

Influenced heavily by artists past and inspired by those in the present I seek to forge my own path in a world I have observed since childhood. I have never thought of painting as a risk, or a dream; it simply is who I am.

Charlie Bierk was born on March 4, 1987 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. He is currently in his 4th year at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2010
Brush Off, Avenue Art Gallery, Montreal, Quebec
Next Big Thing, OCAD Student Gallery, Toronto
Canada Figure Show, Ontario College of Art and Design, Toronto, Canada

2009
Opening the Universe, !dea Gallery, Ontario Science Center, Toronto


SPECIAL PROJECTS

2010
Art With Heart, Casey House Auction, Emerging Artist section, Toronto, Ontario, Canada