Born in Paris, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet now works in New York and Brussels with an exhibition list that’s extremely frequent and reputable. I could go on and on in my own words, but his biography is beautifully written and depicts his work perfectly.

“I remember as a child lying on my back staring at the clouds, seeing things I knew were only in my imagination. Even as you would point these imaginary shapes out to others, you knew, even if they said they saw them, they never quite saw exactly what you saw. You can get a similar feeling when looking at Jean-Baptiste's paintings. Not that you are necessarily looking for recognizable images in the paintings, but that you are standing in front of something that evokes that type of dreamlike thought. So much painting today deals with irony and humor. I guess this is an attempt to make painting have a more contemporary voice. What this leaves us with is the feeling of having just watched a YouTube video of a cat falling out of an armchair. This isn't, to me, the role of painting. Painting is romantic. There is no denying that. We all accept by now that heroism is over, but that doesn't mean we have to give up. Jean-Baptiste is a searcher. Someone that is looking for meaning in his practice. The lyrical place in his paintings offers us all the possibility to dream. Something we should all take advantage of when the opportunity arises.”

Stephen Felton, Catskill Mountains, August 2018