Frozen Moments: Jacqueline Berting

April 15 to June 3, 2007

Keith and Winifred Shantz Gallery

Though the use of sand-cast, and blown glass, Jacqueline Berting celebrates the progression of life and its air of mystery; the boundaries we face, how we deal with the obstacles and the spirit we create.

Her exhibition Frozen Moments encapsulates visually what author W.O. Mitchell referred to as the "magic lie." By taking bits of one's experience - autobiographical bits of truth - the artist creates his or her story. And whereas the truth is in the little pieces, the entirety is fiction - the magic lie. Berting achieves this effect in her glass sculptures. In this instance through using the repeated image of a fence or picket as her metaphor for life experiences that, while particular to her, nonetheless become universal in significance.

Boundless is a monumental structure that consists of almost 20 glass “pickets” within a steel framework. The sculpture is arranged in a sinewy line, fluid in effect in contrast to the materials with which it is created. The pickets increase or decrease in size depending on which way it is viewed. The change as well in composition - going from a very simple beginning and modest piece to the final picket which is dramatic and almost Baroque in its content - embues the work with a narrative that speaks about the evolution of life itself, and the position of humankind within the natural world around.

Boundless

Stepping Out...Into Bliss

Within this work there is also a profound sense of the spiritual although the imagery is not formally religious. Boundless is a sublime evocation of the quest for finding meaning in life itself.

This theme continues itself in the other works on view. Playing with the idea of “family” trees in some works, but also subtly reminding one that in time we all shall become part of the earth itself, the artist’s multilayered message is revealled. The pickets with their uniformity of shape reference the passage of time, of generations. They are separate pieces that collectively stand for continuity and protection - something that we all hope to find with those we love.

Jacqueline Berting was born in St. Gregor Saskatchewan, Canada in 1967. She attended Red Deer College in 1987 and Sheridan College in Oakville Ontario, 1987-1990, where she majored in Glass. She studied Iron Art and Blacksmithing at Penland, North Carolina, 1990. In 1998 Jacqueline completed a commission for the University of Regina's New Fine Arts Campus encompassing 200 glass Panels in the Dining area. Jacqueline and her husband James operate Berting Glass in Saskatchewan. The have recently created a large Commissions for the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut in Iqualuit, and for The City of Weyburn in Saskatchewan, and a Centenial commemorative wall in St. Gregor Saskatchewan. In December 2005, Jacqueline received a Centennial Medal and Celebrations of the Arts Pin for her contribution to Saskatchewan through her art.