About
image: Joy Masi
My work is founded on the search for nuance, and a desire for the questions to take precedence over the answers.
Recently, (and for the first time in my painting career), I have turned my attention to male bodies—painting men in my life and speaking with them about their experiences surrounding masculinity, insecurity, and the roles society expects of them. Also, I wanted to flip the script: to instead put male bodies in the canvas via the female gaze.
This dive into the topic of masculinity began for me at the confluence of: (1) feeling tired and bored of seeing predominantly female bodies in paintings, and (2) noticing my young son suddenly starting to exhibit traits considered archetypal male: a resistance toward crying or being seen as sensitive, and avoiding more “feminine” colors or activities. For over two years now I have been interviewing and painting men, which has for me, exposed a blaring gap with how much has been left out of the public narrative of gender inequality; men have money, power, and prestige, but they are often barred from intimate relationships, emotional honesty, and are saddled with a near constant pressure to prove their masculinity, often resulting in isolation and loneliness.
I’m asking what it means to “be a man” in America and discovering the myriad of ways that masculinity hurts men too.
Elizabeth Bergeland (b.1983) grew up in Wyoming and Colorado and earned her BFA in painting alongside Anthropology from the University of Colorado in 2006. Bergeland keeps a studio in Philadelphia, PA.
Combining figurative realism with abstracted or imagined elements and spaces, her work talks with the use of symbolism. She has a strong desire to suspend the question- to allow it to sit. To get comfortable with questions not needing to be answered. Bergeland has a strong desire to enlarge the social narrative; specifically surrounding our ideas surrounding the way we think about masculinity and femininity.
Bergeland has exhibited nationally and had her first solo exhibition in 2022. Her, work has been featured in Create Magazine, Friend of the Artist, Philadelphia Magazine, 1st Look TV, Artit Magazine, Root Quarterly, The Visionary Projects, Fuerteventura Times, and Design Sponge. She is the illustrator of the children’s books, Being Edie is Hard Today (2019), and The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection (2021), with publisher Little,Brown and Company. The Great Whipplethorp Bug Collection received a Kirkus Star review, an NPR review, was listed among “The 10 Best Children’s Books of 2021” by Smithsonian Magazine, and her illustrations were selected by the Society of Illustrators Museum for their annual “Original Art Show”. She lives with her husband and three children.
Image: Philippe Salomon
“She doesn’t merely flip the script as so many artists have done, she
turns it inside out. Rather than using her reclaimed power for exploitation, she uses it for a
narrative of compassion. While the male gaze seeks to control, Bergeland seeks to liberate;
the male gaze objectifies, she humanizes; the male gaze reduces women, while she gives men
permission to be more than society has allowed.”