"...The harmonious flow of connections in the chaos of every day life comes about through materials that happened to be found on the spot and do not seem to belong to art at first glance: bus tickets, scraps of paper, wrapping materials, napkins, just like everything else that was at hand in the situation. These objects remind Marcel Duchamp’s idea that everything can turn into art, even a soiled pizza carton, which seems unaesthetic to the habitual glance.

It is not Costa Bernstein’s intention to irritate the spectator. He rather works to show how the singular fragments of situations are indivisible of a complete aesthetic experience. Each collage picture offers different perspectives that are picked up – in more than one sense – in surroundings that are often very familiar to the spectator: airport, concert, workplace, bar. They are zoomed into and the brush explores and renders their microcosm.

Through the unusual combination of details that are put together and worked out the artist transforms habitual situations into a new and extraordinary experience that invites us to wonder and to join in and celebrate."

Esther Stein
Art historian.

Copyright 2004-2010 © Costa Bernstein