INTERVIEW
Bernadette Despujols by Melissa Joseph
Paintings that depict the interconnectedness of femininity, ecology, and power.
JUNE 26, 2024
Because we operate so much in digital and urban realms, it is not easy to remember to cultivate a grounding relationship with nature. But our interdependence with it is so strong that we will inevitably be called back to it. This year, the blossoming and wilting of the viburnum outside my mom’s house happened to coincide with her illness and death inside, which was my own powerful, albeit painful, reminder of this connection.
Bernadette Despujols’s exhibition at Rachel Uffner Gallery, Exquisite Cuerpo, tackles this same interconnectedness through the lens of the female body at another point in the life cycle: childbirth. Her experience of becoming a mother shifted her perception of self from fragile to an indomitable, generative force. Her new paintings and the figures within them confront the viewer directly, as her subjects often do, urging them to be cognizant of the systems working against human-nature harmonies. They implore us not to be complicit in the erosion of women’s bodily autonomy or the environment that sustains them. Through these works she poses a crucial call for all-encompassing love and stewardship.
