Kristin Bjornerud creates delicate, fanciful and introspective images resembling illustrations for children’s books or fables. With titles like Memorial and Sanctuary, her watercolour paintings explore themes of politics, ecology and mythology through placement of small people and animals on isolated grounds. The expanses of white space surrounding the mythical encounters between people and animals give the images a slightly surrealist or dream-like quality. At the same time, the pictures have a surprisingly strong sense of period and place that addresses, in particular, moral and ecological concerns about species protection.
New works include a fresh focus on more formal compositional devices for presenting visual narratives. These works have no specific theme other than “the lens of folktales, dreams, and magical realism,” as Bjornerud puts it. She experiments with placement, scale and groupings as well as the temporal and cinematographic qualities of her narratives in these slightly more complex scenes.
Originally from Edmonton, Alberta, Kristin Bjornerud earned her MFA at the University of Saskatchewan (2005), her BFA from the University of Lethbridge (2002), and is the recipient of several grants from the Saskatchewan Arts Board. Her work is included in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Saskatchewan Arts Board and Citibank Canada. She currently lives and works in Hamilton, Ontario.
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