The artist Tina Berning loves women's imperfections

Tina Berning enjoyed an international breakthrough in 2007 when she illustrated the cover of the New York Times Magazine, selecting as her model the newly ordained Pope Benedict XVI. While the Pope is the spiritual leader of a community dominated by men, it is women whom the artist, born 1969 in Brunswick, has made into her most important motif.

Berning portrays beauty sensually and gracefully in her drawings and collages. Areas of color flow over the fine contours of her bodies and faces. She drapes brush strokes in pale shades over the curves of the female figure. As canvases, she uses old school notebooks, drawing pads, sheets of newspaper, and papers that she finds in flea markets or estate sales. Berning appreciates the traces of the past, imperfections, and complexities which evoke incompleteness.