Biography
Based in Tartanya (Adelaide), Bernadette Klavins is an artist working in the field of sculpture. Working in a process-based manner, Klavins draws out the poetic potential of materials and considers our human relationship to deep time and geologic forces. In 2016, Klavins graduated from Adelaide Central School of Art (ACSA) with First Class Honours and received a Major Travel Award. In 2017, she completed an international residency at The Icelandic Association of Visual Art in Reykjavik. Klavins has since exhibited at spaces including: Watch This Space (NT), Canberra Contemporary Art Space (ACT), Cool Change Contemporary (WA), Post Office Projects (SA), Adelaide Central Gallery (SA), FELTspace (SA), Floating Goose Studios (SA), Art Pod (SA) and Carclew (SA). Klavins makes from Switchboard Studios in Norwood, alongside working at the Art Gallery of South Australia as Project Manager, Tarnanthi, and lecturing at ACSA. She is currently on Guildhouse's Artist Advisory Board, and was previously a Co-Director of FELTspace from 2017 to 2019.
Media
2024
Review: Neoterica Celebrates the Collective Imagination, Jane Llewellyn, InReview, March 2024
“Bernadette Klavins’ installation, Study of a Memory, is a highlight…The work is inspired by her grandfather, Juris Klavins, who migrated from Latvia to Australia…Featuring oak leaves made from resin which are suspended from the ceiling, the installation captures the essence of golden sunlight shining through the leafy canopies of the trees. This evokes memories of Bernadette’s childhood and visiting Juris on sunny Sunday afternoons…Through these works, Klavins explores her family heritage, our connection to home, and how earthly matter can connect people such as Juris to their home country.”
Review: Neoterica, The Barefoot Review, Chris Reid, March 2024
“The work represents Klavins’ reflections on the experience of her grandfather in Latvia during and after World War II, his migration to Australia, and the oak trees in his Adelaide garden, which remain as childhood memories. The soil was brought to Australia to be buried with him following his passing, and Klavins’ work is a touching memorial to his life.”
2022
‘In the studio with Bernadette Klavins’, Walter Marsh, InDaily, December 2022
“Klavins’ corner of the long-running space, which she’s rented for the past three years, houses a cross-section of her recent work. A set of ochre-red bricks are laid out flat on a trestle, miscellaneous chunks of rubble, stone and wood appear in random corners, and on the floor sits an otherworldly black shape with the curves of a topographical map and a velvety, charcoal surface.”
‘Breaking Apart’, Connal Lee, CityMag, July 2022
“With fingers still aching, I am struck by an immediate sense of vulnerability in Bernadette Klavins’ work Vast Spoils, which offers a god’s eye view of a rich and detailed sculptural landscape. Quarries, crevices and embankments stretch out over the gallery floor. Delicate contours and curves as well as barbed edges and sharp, abrasive lines. This is a land of extremes.”
2021
“Bernadette Klavins’ Failure Pattern is a strong starting point. It comprises nine cast concrete forms, each 60x60cm. The forms are placed in a straight line along the gallery floor, variously individualised by indentations or raised elements on the otherwise minimal surfaces. In a quietly nuanced and subtle way, each form and the forms in combination speak of both the built and the natural environment. The artist's Minimalist aesthetic and its concomitant conceptual basis mark this as a powerfully seductive work.”
2017
'Introducing: ACSA Major Travel Award Winners', Jaki Woods, Clique Mag, January 2017
2016
'Class of 2016: ACSA art graduates to watch', Sharmonie Cockayne, CityMag, November 2016