Victoria is a visual artist working with digital video sound and image installation, graphic and photographic media. Her practice centres on the representation of landscape and most particularly the somewhat watery landscapes of Northern and Western Scotland. Her work has been exhibited extensively in national and international gallery and non-gallery sites as: one-person exhibitions, commissioned site-specific installations and in the context of themed group exhibitions. Victoria is the recipient of awards from: the Leverhulme Trust, the Hope Scott Trust, the Scottish Arts Council, Film and Video Umbrella, the Arts Trust of Scotland and the Shetland Arts Trust.
“In my practice as a visual artist the knowledge of my discipline is fundamental to its operation. Knowing the heritage of an image – culturally and intellectually – is key to its form, its evolution and its use. Working with the moving image – installed and as a single screen presentation – I have consistently directed my work towards the realisation of spatial fictions. Shallow space landscapes depicted at a micro scale in the tradition of the Victorian Stereoscope and the earliest forms of natural history filmmaking or large format single screen projections of spatial narratives installed for passing witness or close study in the context of specified architectural spaces resonant with past and present inhabitation. Using the iconography of the optical entertainment – arcane and contemporary – I am trying to make an architecture, an inhabitable filmic space where the operations of daily life might give way to the scale-less manoeuvres of the human imagination. Where the familiar cinematic image is required to activate the witness towards a form of engaged, careful,’ looking at’ of the world.”
Education
Master of Architecture History and Theory, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Postgraduate Diploma in Fine Art Printmaking, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh.
MA Honours Fine Art, Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh.
Selected Exhibitions and Projects
Installation
2006-8 Northern City: Between Light and Dark, collaborative video sound and image installation with architecture studio METIS, The Lighthouse, Glasgow [December-February 2006-7], Il Palagio di Parte Guelfa, Florence [March 2007], The Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh [May 2007], Royal Academy Summer Exhibition – invited submission – [June-August 2008] art-architecture collaboration, touring exhibition. (group)
2005 Catterline Arts Festival, Catterline, Aberdeenshire. Site-specific video sound and image installation in the Church of St.Philip, Catterline Village. (group)
2004 Memoirs of a Beekeeper, ‘Oak Trees and Fountains,’ an Iain Irving + Lorraine Grant project, Drum Castle, Aberdeenshire. Site-specific video sound and image installation in the Gardener’s and Wood Store, Drum Castle, the National Trust for Scotland, Aberdeenshire. (group)
2004 Idleness and the Dreamer, Bonhoga Gallery, Shetland. Site-specific video sound and image installation. (solo)
2003 Cinematic Garden, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute. Site-specific video sound and image installation commissioned by the Mount Stuart Visual Arts Programme. (solo)
2001 För mig du är vacher / To me, you are beautiful, Trehörnahult Småland, Sweden. Site-specific video sound and image installation. (group)
1999 The Invention of Geography, art.t.m., Inverness. (solo)
1995 Inappropriate Behaviour, La Centrale, Montréal, Québec, Canada. (solo)
Art+Architecture
2007 70Architect[e]s Centre de Design Exhibition Gallery of the Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada. (group)
2004 Tramspotting, RIAS Design Proposal Project, 26.11.04, Ocean Terminal Edinburgh with Zone Architects, Edinburgh. Art-architecture collaboration.
1997-1998 Houseworks, Institut Français d’Ecosse, Edinburgh and Pitshanger Manor, Ealing, London. Art-architecture collaboration touring exhibition. (group)
1997 Public Views 2, Architecture, Film, Theory, Photography, Design, History, Music, Art and Things, The Architecture Foundation, London. (group)
Group Exhibitions and Festival Screenings
2008 Zoo Art Fair, Film and Video Umbrella, Royal Academy, London (group)
2008 Homecraft, Shandon Spaces, Edinburgh. Collaborative site-specific embroidery with textile artist Fiona Pilgrim. (group)
2004-2005 Open 6, Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow. (group)
2004-2005 Invisible Fields, Angus Digital Media Centre, Brechin; Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn, Estonia; Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow; An Tuirrean Art Centre, Portree, Skye. Moving image touring exhibition. (group)
2004-2005 DRIFT, New Media Scotland Touring Moving Image Programme. Edinburgh International Film Festival at Stills Gallery, Edinburgh; British Council, Belgrade,
Serbia; The Museum of Voivodina, 8th Videomedja Festival, Novi Sad, Serbia; An Tuirrean Art Centre, Portree, Skye touring exhibition. (group)
2002 Shortomatic Film Festival, Cambridge Arts Cinema, Cambridge Film Festival screening.
2001 A Public Auction of Private Artworks, Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire. A Nina Pope project: collaborative installation and internet/live auction. (group)
Selected Awards and Scholarships
2008-9 Leverhulme Trust: ‘Artist in Residence,’ Scottish Association for Marine Science
2007 The Hope Scott Trust Award
2007 Film and Video Umbrella: ‘Project Development Grant’
2003 Scottish Arts Council: ‘Assistance Grant for the Visual Arts’
2003 The Hope Scott Trust Award
2003 Shetland Arts Trust Award
2001 The Hope Scott Trust Award
2001 The City of Edinburgh Council: ‘Visual Arts and Crafts Award’
2000 The Arts Trust of Scotland Award
1999 Scottish Arts Council: ‘Assistance Grant for the Visual Arts’
1995 British Council Canada: ‘Visual Arts Professional Exchange Grant’
1993-1995 Leverhulme Trust: ‘Study Abroad Studentship’
Catalogues, Pamphlets and Websites
2007 70Architect[e]s, On Ethics and Poetics, School of Architecture, McGill University, Montreal, Canada (catalogue)
2007 Edimburgo, AND: Magazine of Architecture, Cities and Architects, issue 8 Florence, Italy (catalogue/magazine)
2006 Northern City [Between Light and Dark], The Lighthouse, Glasgow. Authored project essay: Paul Carter “Agreeable Follies: Mental geography and the polyoptics of place” (catalogue)
2004 Invisible Fields, Street Level Photoworks (pamphlet)
2004 Memoirs of a Beekeeper, ‘Oak trees and Fountains’ (pamphlet)
2004 Invisible Fields, Su Grierson and Sarah Felton (catalogue)
2003 Cinematic Garden, Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute (website)
2001 A Public Auction of Private Artworks, Nina Pope (catalogue)
1996 Trans Mission: Transmission de l'héritage des femmes en arts visuels, (Montrèal:
La Centrale Galerie Powerhouse Les éditions du remue-ménage. (catalogue)
Selected Reviews
2007 A Well-Cultivated Garden, Duncan McLaren, MAP, issue 9.
2006 Labours of Division, Leon McDermott, METRO, December 12th.
2006 Shedding Light on Edinburgh’s Shadows, Mark Cousins, bd Building Design, December 18th .
2006 Northern City-Between Light and Dark, The List, issue 565 December 6th
2005 Invisible Fields, Open 6 Street Level, Glasgow, Jack Mottram, The LIST, issue 519 April.
2005 Women of Vision, Illiyana Nedkova, Highlands and Islands Arts Journal, January.
2004 Intelligent show … Peter Davis, The Shetland Times, September 10th.
2004 DRIFT, Festival Review, Sunday Herald, 15th August.
2003 Cinematic Garden, The Buteman, 27th June.
1999 The Invention of Geography, Giles Sutherland, The Times, 20th December.
1999 The Invention of Geography, Jonathan Jones, Guardian, 11th October.
1995 La maison comme prétexte à l’art, Jennifer Couëlle, Le Devoir, 26th November.
1995 Pas si bête, Sylvie Fraser, Voir, 7th December.
Publications, Presentations, Lectures by the artist
2008 ‘On site,’ Grays School of Art, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. (lecture)
2007 ‘Northroom’ Scale - a symposium with Andrew Benjamin [philosopher] and Ben Nicholson [architect], Department of Architecture, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh. (lecture)
2007 ‘Northroom’ Northern City: Between Light and Dark Il Palagio di Parte Guelfa, Florence. (lecture)
2001 ‘To me you are beautiful’, Far and Wide, [a-n] for artists, October. (publication)
1998 ‘Homespun: some visiting rites’, Somewhere – Nina Pope and Karen J Guthrie, [London: Black Dog Press 1998]. (publication)
1998 ‘Watching the Detectives: on narrative form and topographical proof’ with Joanna Merwood, Nordisk Arkitekturforskning: the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research 1-2.98, [Göteborg:Nordisk Arkitekturforskning 1998]. (publication)
1997 ‘Plotting the landscape: beyond the limit of topographical proof’ Victoria Clare Bernie and Joanna Merwood, paper for presentation to the conference, 'Architecture: Imagining a common ground for theory and practice,’ University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. (lecture)
1996 ‘Who is that girl?’ Artifice Magazine issue 5, [London: UCL Bartlett 1996]. (publication)
1995 ‘How do I look?’ Art as accessory: a critical reconsideration of architectural space. Joanna Merwood (architect) and Victoria Clare Bernie (artist). Presented by Joanna Merwood to the Accessory Architecture Conference, Auckland, New Zealand. (lecture)
Selected Teaching Practice:
Victoria has worked as a fine art and architectural design tutor and visiting artist at the Universities of Edinburgh, Newcastle, Loughborough, McGill in Montreal, Central England and Cleveland College of Art and Design in Middlesbrough. Since 2000 she has worked extensively in the Master of Architecture Programme in the Department of Architecture at Edinburgh University where she has contributed to teaching, workshops, exhibitions and publications undertaken within the programme and across the graduate school.