Start to Finish: The Seven Stages of "Apex" by Gerry Bergstein

American artist Gerry Bergstein (born 1947) juxtaposes images in his work to illustrate alternative universes and apocalyptic visions. Employing an encyclopedia of intaglio techniques, Apex includes etching, aquatint, lift ground, spit bite, drypoint, scraping, burnishing, and chine collé.

Inspired by drawings of wave patterns and cloud formations in the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519), this image typifies Bergstein’s concerns of the duality inherent in life and death, growth and decay.

The seven stages demonstrate the choices the artist made before reaching the final version that he approved for printing the edition.  The image progresses from a graphite drawing to a black etching to a color print, with increasing linear complexity.

Bergstein describes his work as a contrast between “the awesome and the trivial, the high and the low, the manic and the melancholic, using sources from Brueghel to the Simpsons.”  Throughout his career he has made prints, paintings, and mixed media works featuring collage and photographic assemblage, all of which depict imagery that borders on visual chaos.

Bergstein received his B.F.A. and M.F.A from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he has taught painting for more than two decades.  He has had one-person exhibitions at galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Danforth Museum and the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, both in Massachusetts, and his work is in several prestigious private and public collections, such as the Federal Reserve Bank, Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Boston Public Library, Stux Gallery, New York, and the Galerie Bonnier, Switzerland.

The works in Start to Finish are part of the Center Street Studio Archives in the collection of the Joel and Lila Harnett Print Study Center, University of Richmond Museums.  The exhibition is organized by the University of Richmond Museums and curated by Richard Waller, Executive Director, University Museums.