Statement

I paint and construct low relief collages that weave together bits and pieces of topical, historical and personal experience. From the world I see around us, I pull out fragments of shapes and forms that are intertwined with the times and places of my life.

I am not driven by artistic fashion, tradition or dogma. I do not consistently use materials, shapes or formats traditionally associated with painting. In exploring the murky lines between painting and other visual arts' mediums, I call out for the consideration of new traditions.

I believe artistic expression arises from the multifaceted nature of human beings. Reaching into my external experiences and internal musings for artistic inspiration, I hope that my work helps to make a difference in the experiences and the lives of others.

Selected Personal Biography

We can proceed from many different start points and follow many different routes. But at the most fundamental level, we all face two fundamental questions? What to? How to?
                                                 -From Working Identity by Herminia Ibarra

Some of my most memorable artistic experiences include hunting down Caravaggio paintings in Rome, seeing the Bamiyan Buddhas before the Taliban destroyed them in Afghanistan, spending afternoons contemplating rock gardens in Japan and staring up in awe as I stood below Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling.

I live and work in the mountains of Colorado, in the Arizona desert, and in the urban landscape of Chicago. I have also spent a good deal of time living and traveling in Japan. Although I produce different work in different places, I bring ideas from each environment to the other.

I have spent most of my life in Chicago. During my teen years, I studied and worked at the Young Artists Studios of the School of the Art Institute in Chicago. I knew the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago better than the back of my own hand. I relished my days studying sculpture with college students and being close to my early heroes: Henry Moore, David Smith, Jacques Lipschitz, and Constantin Brancusi.

Despite my love of art, I had family responsibilities and obligations that led me to a career in business. A three generation family business and the responsibilities of having a family made it necessary for me to develop other skills and talents. My artistic time shrank over the years as the challenges and demands of business and family life increased. Eventually, the things I learned when I earned a BFA from California College of the Arts melded with a new set of skills. I acquired a law degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law. The company I led with my brother grew to one of the 50 largest furniture retailers in America. In debt and facing the prospect of losing all we had worked for, we managed to turnaround the company again and again as the business struggled. Eventually, we became one of the fastest growing retailers in our industry and were awarded and named Retailer of the Year by a number of organizations. I became a member of the Young Presidents Organization, an organization compromised of company presidents under the age of 50 years. As a member, I attended training sessions at Harvard Business School as well as other workshops for other presidents dealing with career transforming events. I subsequently became a member of the World Presidents Organization. I believe these achievements will only enhance my ability to achieve my goals as a painter.

In time, my business career became less important to me and I was able to devote more of my time and energy to pursuing the life of a visual artist. By 1995, I built a studio at my house in the suburbs of Chicago. I began making large-scale sculpture there. By 2001, I found my ideas would not translate directly into sculpture. I needed to learn another visual language to express myself. I attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for four years to study painting. In 2004, I ended my studies at the school to work independently in my studio. That same year, my eldest son passed away. While living through this tragedy, my work voiced my own personal grief for some time.

The last few years have been spent concentrating on building a body of work. I am now trying to find talented individuals and creative institutions to collaborate with in order to produce art. I have recently been making a series of monoprints with John Armstrong, master printer for Armstrong-Prior. Armstrong-Prior has printed for numerous artists including Akio Takamori, Enrique Martinez Celaya, Rudy Autio, and Jun Kaneko. I believe that these collaborations will pave the way for new directions in my own work.

Community Involvement

I have spent a good part of my life working with others. As a businessman I was always involved with my customers and employees: how to meet their needs, make their shopping and work experiences meaningful and satisfying, and how to create opportunities for my employees in the workplace. As an artist, I think a lot about how to take this focus and redirect it towards my participation in the art world.
 
 
I believe it is important to support others in their artistic endeavors. I spend a lot of time at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, CO. I have been involved with fellow artists and faculty there for the last few summers. Some of the notable visiting artists and instructors that I have spent time with include Julie Mehretu, Jane Hammond, Lawrence Rinder, Harmony Hammond, Jun Kaneko and Takashi Nakazato.
 
 
My wife and I have developed programs to sponsor scholarships in the painting department and an artist in residency in the ceramics departments. It is vital that young artists have an opportunity to study with noted artists. At Anderson Ranch Arts Center, young scholarship students have studied side-by-side with me and had the opportunity to spend time with its noted faculty and artists, too. In addition, being around younger artists helps my work and other more experienced artists' work stay fresh, dynamic, and challenged.
 
 
I have been working with the Dean of IIT Chicago Kent College of Law in bringing law students who may be interested in the arts to Anderson Ranch Arts Center. The first student came to Anderson Ranch Arts Center in the summer of 2008. I have been developing this program in order to broaden law students' exposure to the creative process, the training process of artists, and the work of non-profit arts organizations.
 
 
I also recently spoke about the collaborative printmaking process to a group attending Arizona State University 's Ceramic Research Center bi-annual Ceram-a-rama event. At the facilities of Armstrong-Prior, I showed a number of monoprints of mine that were in various stages of completion and discussed how the prints were conceived. I demonstrated to the group the final stage of completion of a plate I had made using acetate forms and drawings laminated to Plexiglas sheets. We printed the finished plate and demonstrated and discussed the proofing process.

Selected Review of Work

The central issue in Ron Berman's work is the representation of the ongoing flux between order and disorder; or, to say it another way, the expression of the ways that things come together and fall apart. In his newest works, Berman combines his background in both sculpture and painting to create hybrid works that incorporate canvas — sometimes including drawn or painted marks — as well as other materials (i.e. metal spacers) in order to give his works the character of low-relief sculpture.

His arrangement of fragments of canvas on the wall activates the blank space of the wall as well as the negative, empty space (i.e. the volumes of air) between the individual elements of the composition. The particular arrangement of shaped canvas pieces as well as the occasional marks on the canvas itself conveys a linear effect, a quality of flow and direction (what Berman calls a "pathway"). Subtly incorporating threads that have broken free of the canvas' weave, Berman further accentuates the suggestion of linearity and drawing, using these threads to suggest ephemeral connections among the compositions' various parts. The categorical blurring of the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and drawing contributes to the sensation of dynamic instability that Berman's works explore.
                                -Lawrence Rinder, Dean of California College of the Arts, June 2007

Education:
California College of the Arts, Oakland, CA (BFA, 1976)

IIT Chicago Kent College of Law, Chicago, IL (JD, 1987)

Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO (2006, 2007, 2008).

School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (2001-2004).

Painting and Ceramics, Tokyo and Ashiya, Japan (1976-1978).

Exhibitions:
Contemporary Collage, a group exhibition at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO (2008)

old new, borrowed blue, a group exhibition at the LIPA (Links For International Promotion of the Arts) Gallery, Chicago, IL (2005).

All Passes-Art Alone Endures, the 13th Annual Fine Arts Building Artist in Residence Group Exhibition, Chicago, IL (2005).

Open Studio Event, an exhibit held in conjunction with the City of Chicago, IL sponsored "Chicago Artists' Month", Chicago, IL ( 2004).

Embrace Art in Chicago, an event held in conjunction with the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs at the Fine Arts Building, Chicago, IL (2004).

Open Studio Event, an exhibit for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago Northside Affiliates held by the Fine Arts Building, Chicago, IL (2004)

Open Studio Event, an exhibit held at the Fine Arts Building, Chicago, IL (2004)