Bernard Trainor was raised on the Mornington Peninsula along Australia’s rugged South Eastern Coast near the city of Melbourne. It was here that he developed a lasting awareness and appreciation of the potent landscapes that inspired him to pursue a career in art and design. Bernard arrived in Northern California twenty-five years ago where he is the founding principal of Ground Studio a landscape architecture practice with studios in Monterey, Santa Barbara, and Napa. Their designed landscapes are featured in a wide range of books, social media, and publications throughout the world including the New York Times, Vogue Living, Deezen, Garden Design, Gardens Illustrated, Dwell, and Architectural Digest. Trainor approaches his art through a very personal lens, informed by his many years as a reknowed landscape architect, his paintings interpret wild and built landscapes into abstracted forms on large canvas and board. His art explores the lasting images he has ‘absorbed’ living on the edge of the Australian and Californian coastline; these experiences have formed a distinct point of view.
“Whilst traveling I soon discovered my favorite art, architecture and landscapes are deeply connected to the place from which they have grown.” --Trainor
This simple observation and a keen awareness of the regional context inform all Trainor's pursuits. His inspiration is place-driven. His facination is with distinct patterns on the land formed by natural occurrences in that particular place – He explores the authenticity and truth behind this repository of meaning. Working in such dry climates as Australia and California, he relishes the distinct seasonality that provides ‘fertile’ conditions to accentuate these landscape patterns. Working in any medium that will express his viewpoint, his approach is to interpret and abstractly represent layers of memories and interactions with landscapes where he has lived and worked for the past 50 years. These interactions can be personal, overwhelming, lasting, fleeting, fulfilling, and according to Trainor "above all else, humbling. Rather than any futile attempts at replicating what I have seen and what I felt, my abstract art is based on layers of memory, instinctively un-earthing pattern, texture, and form. My intention is to explore my art in this way, searching for clarity, expressing what is absolutely essential."
Bernard paints in a studio, deep within his own personal garden, on the Monterey Coast. This dynamic experience has a significant effect on his art.