- Membership Level:
- Exhibiting
- Member Category:
- Artist
- Arts Media:
- Painting
About Dennis A. Bertram
Dennis Bertram is a resident artist at the Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, New York.
I compose paintings with imagery evocative of houses and buildings, used like building blocks, their differing arrangements responding to disparate ideas. The impossibility of making sound important decisions because of pervasive faulty information, competing interests, psychological pressure, is reflected in complex, dense patterns within paintings. The “scaffold” paintings are about extension and connectivity, structures clinging in nodes along scaffolding as if neural pathways, social networks or the universe connected through cosmic forces, reaching out to secure strength through those alliances, and extending beyond the picture plane, to the imagined. The structures, as “skyships,” are arranged in clusters, some bouquet-like, free-floating, falling or traveling within an indeterminate space. In the “reclaim” paintings, their incarnate nature is in full fruition, unbound, abandoning their primal domain to invade and physically deface, dominate naturalistic paintings, and assimilate in form and hue the conquered. The use of gold leaf, derived from religious iconography, solicits visual excitation and symbolizes spiritual redemption.
Portfolio
Video Gallery
Education
Steve Carpenter Studio and Art Gallery, Rochester, New York, numerous workshops since 2003
University of Rochester, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York, workshops: summer and fall 2001 and winter, spring, and fall 2002
Buffalo State College, Buffalo, New York, painting and drawing studio courses, 1997-1998, 2000
Sheridan College, Oakfield, Ontario, Canada, Introduction to Animation course, summer 1998
State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, oil painting course, fall 1996
Erie Community College, Buffalo, New York, acrylic painting courses, summer 1991 and 1992
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, “Life Drawing 1” course, summer 1969
Awards
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, River Art Gallery, North Tonawanda, NY, March 19 – April 16, 2022, Best of Show
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, Kenan Center, Lockport, New York, June 13 – July 18, 2021, Merit Award
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, Daemen College, Amherst, New York, June 5 – June 29, 2016; Honorable Mention
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Fall Exhibition, River Art Gallery, North Tonawanda, New York, October 17 - November 21, 2015; Award of Excellence
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, Niagara Arts & Cultural Center, Niagara Falls, New
York, May 17 - June 14, 2015; Award of Excellence
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Fall Exhibition, Market Street Art Studios, Lockport, New York, October 5 - November 15, 2014, Merit Award
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, Kenan Center House Gallery, Lockport, New York, June 22 - July 20, 2014; Award of Excellence
Buffalo Society of Artists, 117th BSA Catalogue Exhibition Kenan Center, Lockport, New York, September 15 – October 13, 2013; Honorable Mention
Buffalo Society of Artists, 2010 Spring Exhibition, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York, April 18 – September 5, 2010, Excellence in Oils award
Buffalo Niagara Art Association, Spring Exhibition, Partners in Art Gallery, North Tonawanda, New York, May 2 – 22, 2009 Honorable Mention Award
Carnegie Art Center, Tonawandas’ Council on the Arts, Members’ Exhibition, Tonawanda, New York, November 5 – December 10, 2005, Third Place
Amherst Society of Artists, Fall 2004 Exhibition, Virginia Weiss Gallery, Empire State College, Buffalo, New York, November 5 - November 29, 2004, Outstanding Achievement Award.
Carnegie Art Center, Tonawandas’ Council on the Arts, Members’ Exhibition, Tonawanda, New York, November 9 – December 14, 2002; First Place award
Amherst Society of Artists, Fall Exhibition, Kenan Center House Gallery, Lockport, New York, September 6 - October 6, 2002; Outstanding Achievement award
Amherst Society of Artists, Fall Show, Partners in Art Gallery, North Tonawanda, New York, November 3 – November 20, 2001; Outstanding Achievement award
Amherst Society of Artists Fall Juried Show, Waligur-Doering Gallery, Hamburg, New York, November 7 – December 4, 1999, Honorable Mention
Hilton Head Art League’s National Juried Exhibition, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, May 5 – June 12, 1999; First Place (oil division)
Amherst Society of Artists Annual Exhibition, Lockport, New York, November 29, 1998–January 10, 1999, Outstanding Achievement award
Publications
Bertram, Dennis. Complicated: A Plain Talking Artist’s Guide to His Art. Bertram Art Publishing, 2018 (ISBN 069205832X; ISBN-13 978-0-692-05832-9)
CollectX25. Buffalo Arts Studio, Buffalo, New York, 2017
Featured artist: Quarterly West, February 6, 2015, Issue 84 (winter issue), quarterlywest.com
Best of America Oil Artists Vol. II. Kennedy Publishing, Williamsburg, Virginia, 2009
Bookcover: Brooks-Bertram, Peggy and Barbara Seals Nevergold. Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of Western New York; In Commemoration of the Centennial of the Niagara Movement The Legacy Continues 1905-2005; Volume III. Uncrowned Queens Publishing: Buffalo, New York, 2005 (ISBN 0-9722977-2-3)
Bookcover: Nevergold, Barbara Seals and Peggy Brooks-Bertram. Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of Western New York; Volume II. Uncrowned Queens Publishing: Buffalo, New York, 2003 (ISBN 0-9722977-1-5)
Bookcover: Bertram, Lillian. Tierra Fisurada. Cuadernos del Duende: Jujuy, Argentina, 2002 (ISBN 987-43-4533-0)
Bookcover: Brooks-Bertram, Peggy and Barbara Seals Nevergold. Uncrowned Queens: African American Women Community Builders of Western New York; Volume I. Uncrowned Queens Publishing: Buffalo, New York, 2002 (ISBN 0-9722977-0-7)
Latest Events & Exhibitions
