Bob Bernard is a British painter who grew up in Manchester and moved to study fine art at Sheffield’s Psalter Lane site in 1984 and has remained a resident in South Yorkshire to this day. Recent work is focused on both figurative and landscape subjects, the latter worked from the striking and rugged scenery found in various parts of the British Isles, including North Wales, the Peak District and North Western Scotland. Bob’s work is very much focused on paint, and how he uses his oil paints and soft pastels, employing expressive mark making to capture the dramatic physical structures of these landscapes enhanced by the light and colour that the seasons bring, along with the ever-changing weather that pushes through these places of outstanding beauty.

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He has exhibited at several shows including the Pastel Society’s Annual Exhibition at Mall Galleries in London, the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts Open Exhibition, Sheffield Mappin Art Gallery Open Exhibition, at the kaleidoscope show in Austin, Texas and regularly sells work through private galleries in Manchester, Sheffield, Yorkshire and Derbyshire. He is delighted to have work based around annual trips to North Wales now being exhibited here. He is also a member of Peak District Artisans.

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Bob is married with two grown up children. He built a successful career as a freelance graphic artist and played with political satire as a cartoonist working under the guise of ‘Get Satire Done’.

On a personal note, Bob was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 5 years ago.

 

"Like most people who are diagnosed I had probably had it for some time. It was affecting my work as a freelance graphic artist, I was struggling with slowness of movement, stiffness and loss of fine motor control, and grappling with my co-ordination, with pain, brain fog, and tiredness. The medication has improved things dramatically. Sometimes, emotionally I feel like I have a shortened window of time in which I can keep painting to a what I think is a respectable standard. I realised that I had to own my Parkinson’s and allow my work to become more expressive. Dopamine is linked to creativity with many who are newly diagnosed turning to art for the first time. For me, one of the biggest issues with Parkinson’s is how it can affect you on that emotional level when your dopamine levels drop, and its role in how we feel pleasure combined with knowing as my condition develops, that my body is degenerating and not knowing when and what the future will bring. 

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But in conclusion, on a more positive note, despite Parkinson’s being degenerative, the enforced lifestyle changes have increased my focus on my own artwork and away from commercial illustration and graphics work. I am trying to use my Parkinson’s as a positive, as an opportunity to make art."

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