“What would it mean to see another person so completely that something in you shifts? I call that Radical Compassion, and it's what every painting I make is reaching towards. Each canvas is a restoration; each face an exploration of our shared humanity, infinite potential, and a reminder that a life is so much more than a number.”
~ LAUREN BERGMAN
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Lauren Bergman Artist’s CV
Project Grants
2018 – 2021 Dr. David M. Milch Foundation“Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated”
In collaboration with composer Ella Milch-Sheriff, a collection of twenty paintings were created each with a unique musical composition. Two interactive exhibitions have been produced, with more forthcoming.
Selected Solo and Two Person Exhibitions
2024 Museum of Science and History, Jacksonville, Florida
Multidisciplinary exhibition of “Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated”
2023 Brandeis University, Hadassah Brandeis Institute
Exhibition of the “Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated” series
2019 Museum Ginzach Kiddush Hashem exhibition at The Pierre Hotel, NYC, NY
“Lives Eliminated, Dreams Illuminated”
2012 TriaGallery NYC,NY
2010 TriaGallery,NYC,NY
“The Ameritopia Series”
2009 Corey Helford Gallery, Culver City, CA
“CalHalla: Dreams of Future Passed”
2006 O.K. Harris, NYC, NY
“Everything’s Under Control”
2004 O.K. Harris, NYC, NY
“American Pastoral”
2003 Makor Gallery, NYC, NY
“Neo Nostalgia”
2002 O.K. Harris, NYC, NY
“American Dream”
1993 Capricorn Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Jane Street Gallery, Saugerties, NY
“Welcome Home” and “A Chorus of Angels”
2024 Annual Online Juried Show
American Women Artists
2023 Jane Street Gallery, Saugerties, NY
“Go Figure”
2022 Emerge Gallery, Saugerties, NY
“Exit 20” and “Petit”
2019 Ille Arts, Amagansett, NY
“Artists Go to the Movies”
2018 33 Contemporary Gallery, Zhou B Art Center, Chicago, IL
“Chronicles of a Future Foretold”
Mayson Gallery NYC, NY
“Fragments of Self”
Poets and Artists publication
“Painting The Figure Now”
2012 Tria Gallery, NYC, NY
"C'est Quoi la Femme?"
Exhibit A Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
"Obey Your Master - Metallica Art Show"
Claire Oliver Gallery, NYC, NY
"All That Glitters"
2011 View Art Gallery, Bristol, England
"Modern Fabulists"
2009 Jonathan Levine Gallery, NYC, NY
“True Self”
Exhibit A Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
“The Detournements of Wynn Miller”
2008 Tria Gallery, NYC,NY
“State of theUnion”
Definition Gallery, Baltimore, MD
“A Dozen Echoes”
2007 Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
"Literartistry Show"
Anya Tish Gallery, Houston, TX
"Homage to Domestic Familiarity"
Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
"Charity By Numbers"
2006 Carl Hammer Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
"All About Women"
Saatchi and Saatchi, Harlem Art Project Benefit Auction, hosted by Phillips de Pury NYC,NY
2005 The Times Square Gallery, NYC, NY
"Curator and Artist"
The Times Square Gallery, NYC, NY
"Shadow and Light"
2003 M.A. Doran Gallery, Tulsa, OK
“American Realism VI”
2002 The Times Square Gallery, NYC, NY
“My Summer Vacation”
The Times Square Gallery, NYC, NY
“The Love Show”
2001 Port Authority Gallery NYC, NY
Nexus Gallery NYC, NY
2000 Knickerbocker Gallery, NYC, NY
“Winter Show” and “Summer Show”
1999 Art Students League NYC, NY Blue Dot Student Exhibition
1997 Audart Gallery NYC, NY
1991-1994 Capricorn Gallery, Washington, D.C
Seasonal Group Shows
Education
Art Students League, New York, New York continuing education
Parson's School of Design, New York, New York continuing education
Smith College, Northampton, MA, M.Ed.
University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BA art and education, summa cum laude
ABOUT
What would it mean to see another person so completely that something in you shifted? I call that experience Radical Compassion - and it is what my paintings are reaching toward.
Radical Compassion is a way of seeing. It begins in the willingness to stop and look at another human being long enough that their particularity, the weight of their specific life, becomes
undeniable. When that seeing truly happens, the boundary between self and other becomes
briefly porous. In that openness is an antidote to the forces that make strangers of us:
prejudice, indifference, the slow habituation by which we stop registering the humanity of those
who seem unlike us.
My paintings live at the juncture of myth and social realism - drawing on photographs from
European WWII archives to reimagine girls and women murdered in the Holocaust into worlds
of beauty and infinite possibility. Each canvas is an act of restoration, each face an invitation into the sudden cellular recognition that their humanity and yours are made of the same material-the same limitless capacity for dreaming, the same unchartered potential, the same irreducible light.
Harnessing both my personal lineage and my inner language of symbols and imagery, I strive for this work to hold beauty and haunting in equal measure; beckoning the viewer toward a story that never got to unfold. My goal is to honor these lost lives; to give back something that was stolen, and remind the world that these young people once lived and loved, and had stories to tell. It asks nothing except to see - to witness the particular, the individual, the irreplaceable. It is an invitation to be opened; to experience Radical Compassion.
BIO
As part of the Covid exodus from NYC, Bergman currently lives and works in a barn in Saugerties, NY. She grew up in the Washington metro area, where she studied at the Corcoran School of Art. Bergman earned a BA in fine art and education from University of Massachusetts at Amherst, graduating summa cum laude, and an MA at Smith College before relocating to Manhattan to study painting at The Art Students League. Her collection of 24 paintings entitled "LIVES ELIMINATED, DREAMS ILLUMINATED", purchased by the Dr. David Milch Foundation, has been exhibited at Brandeis University, the Museum of Science and History in Jacksonville FL, the Ritz Museum in Jacksonville FL, and is on long term display at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ with musical compositions for each painting by renowned composer Ella Milch Sheriff, and an extensive educational component to the exhibition. Bergman's work has been featured in publications ranging from The New York Times to Juxtapoz Magazine. She has had three solo exhibitions at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York, which represented her for a decade. Other solo and two-person exhibitions include the Makor Gallery and Tria Gallery in New York and the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. Her many group shows include Plus One Gallery in London, Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, and Jonathan Levine Gallery and Claire Oliver Fine Art in New York.