STREAMING REFLECTIONS
Caren Helene Rudman
curator statement

installations


expresses the relationship between the visual and the collective consciousness revealing how art has the ability to take us on a journey
— Caren Helene Rudman, curator, TACHP


The Art Center Highland Park presents a solo exhibition of artist Bert Leveille, creating a site specific art installation exploring consciousness, light, and movement. Bert implements a full experiential component to her work, using light to intensify the experience. Streaming Reflections’ large-scale paintings complete the stage’s transformation into an “alternate” world where the dancing figure seems to flow across space. Bert states. “I am exploring consciousness. I present abstraction and light with the intent to create a meditative space to walk into — a place where one can enter a stream of consciousness — strands of the past, present and future; reflections of both our interior and exterior realities. As I paint, I attempt to connect to consciousness and reflect on myself and my world as I perceive it — question and explore thought, and my connection to a greater consciousness. I see myself as a conduit — data filters through me.”

Bert Leveille is a contemporary Chicago area artist employing mediums including video, animation, LED changing lighting, mixed media, canvas, and acrylic paint. Each installation offers a unique experience for the artist and the viewer. Her life-size mindful beings that inhabit her large-scale paintings are not necessarily human. But, they are imbued with the same challenges, emotions, desires, pain, uncertainty, disappointments, and victories. “I see them more like me than not; you more like me than not; and my reality more connected to the greater universe than not.” These mindful beings therefore reflect the collective consciousness that together streams throughout the universe.

Bert’s exceptional work expresses the relationship between the visual and the collective consciousness revealing how art has the ability to take us on a journey. As literature creates worlds in the unconscious imagination, Bert’s work reflects the other worldly aspects of thought, imagination and wonderment. In the process, what is uniquely human is stripped down to its most fundamental, where form represents a universal rather than a particular gender, race, or age. To walk into the space, one is surrounded by light, the still image swirling in constant motion, while the pure energy of the experience expands our horizons.

– Caren Helene Rudman, Curator, TACHP


Ann Landi essay

bert leveille statement



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