ABOUT THE ARTIST
Berlein has worked as an artist for 25 years, focusing primarily on painting, but has also worked with print, video, photography, music and sculptural mediums.
In 2010, together with Francois Irvine, she opened the Haas Collective in Cape town, South Africa. The Collective strives to build a platform for emerging artists to showcase their work to the public and link up with more established art galleries and collectors.
Between 2008 and 2012, she established the Art buying department for Cecile and Boyd Design.
Berlein has exhibited and curated extensively in South Africa and abroad.
Berlein’s portrait and figurative work is well known. Twice she has been a finalist in the SPI National Portrait award, and her work is widely collected.
In her portrait/figurative work, she sets out to capture iconic qualities she recognises within the character of her subjects. Her work is primarily concerned with portraying, capturing and exploring human emotional response to self, and to one another, and the fragility and beauty that exists within humanity.
Influence
Since a young age I have been attracted to working with metallic’s, layering, glazing and embellishment. It took a while before my father pointed out the obvious – I was looking to emulate the rock formations I had studied as a child. I considered this and realized that inspiration for the works did indeed spring from this, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was an opportunity to go beyond the obvious.
Subject
Through my work I hope to promote dialogue and an awareness of identity, I hope to encourage people to own their make up and in so doing, facilitate their own healing and the healing of others.
