Ray Bernoff

Trash Painting #3

Mixed media art waste (acrylic, PVA glue, paper, cardboard, rhinestones, Sculptamold, and CA glue tube) on canvas board

4″ x 6″ x 2″

2020

In my series “Trash Paintings,” I only use materials left over from other art projects—unused acrylic paint lingering on the palette, sheets of half-dried glue from the morning after a papier-mâché session, snippets of cardboard picked off the floor. I assembled Trash Painting #3 from waste from a series of rhinestone-studded ‘disco objects’ I made early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Creating with waste emboldens me to explore textures and compositions I’m scared will be ugly. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s already trash.

@rmhbernoff

Ray Bernoff

Trash Painting #11

mixed media art waste (acrylic, Mod Podge, metal leaf, plastic film, and styrofoam) on canvas board

4″ x 4″

2023

In my series ‘Trash Paintings’, I only use materials left over from other art projects—unused acrylic paint lingering on the palette, sheets of half-dried glue from the morning after a papier-mache session, snippets of cardboard picked off the floor. I assembled Trash Painting #11 using waste from a series of small clay wall ornaments I made in 2023. Creating with waste emboldens me to explore textures and compositions I’m scared will be ugly. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s already trash.

@rmhbernoff

Ray Bernoff

Trash Painting #13

mixed media art waste (acrylic, linocut scraps, paint tubes, sandpaper, nitrile gloves, paper towels) on canvas

20″ x 24″

2023-2024

In my series ‘Trash Paintings’, I only use waste materials — both leftovers from other projects and media that are old or otherwise unusable. Creating with waste emboldens me to explore textures and compositions I’m scared will be ugly. What’s the worst that could happen? It’s already trash. Trash Painting #13 integrates discarded and unwanted materials from friends, familiy, and community members: gunky paint, abandoned embroidery projects, half-dried glue. It inspired my upcoming series ‘Community Trash’.

@rmhbernoff

Ray Bernoff

Safe Foods

Inspired by: David Seltzer, Sea Salt/Lemon Sage

aluminum foil, stone clay, Hershey’s kisses wrappers and plumes, found objects, cardstock, spray paint, acrylic paint, glass microbead paint

12” x 24”

2024

With celiac disease, every meal is a risk. Gluten hides everywhere, from restaurant griddles to soy sauce and licorice. Since my diagnosis, I’ve identified “safe foods” I can always trust not to set off an intestine-destroying immune response: whole fruit, plain potato chips, most hot dogs, Hershey’s chocolate. When I’m stranded and hungry, I look for them. Drawing on the bright colors and abstract inedibility of David Seltzer’s ‘Sea Salt / Lemon Sage’, I made my safe foods easier to find by rendering them in an ANSI-inspired worksite safety palette. Use the headlamp for the full high-visibility experience.

@rmhbernoff

Ray Bernoff

The Wound Will Not Heal

paper clay, spackle, acrylic paint, PVA glue, varnish, expired medication, and unicorn milk pearlescent topcoat on canvas

10″ x 10″ x 3″

2022

I’m sick and disabled. Everyday I take pills. At my worst, I was throwing back fifteen a day. I get so fed up I could scream. I am filled to bursting with anti-inflammatories and beta blockers and pain meds and antidepressants and vitamins, filled until I could tear open. This relief sculpture did not bring me ease, but did let me reveal for a moment what I normally hold back.

@rmhbernoff