Cincinnati artist Nancy Berninger is a graduate of the College of Mt. St. Joseph, who lives on the western side of town with her husband, Paul. They have three children. Her work can be seen at Stone Step Studio in Cleves, Ohio.

ARTIST STATEMENT

The act of painting grants me a kind of freedom that I have always looked for. My paintings convey both spontaneity and organized energy — sometimes a masculine energy, sometimes a more tender, feminine emotion. I want my work to emote a feeling, an appreciation, or a longing. The florals are about color and abundance. The portraits strive to catch an expression, a sense of what’s on the subject’s mind or in his or her heart.

My paintings get progressively larger. I paint with confidence and with the recognition that not every effort will be a successful painting. Some recent works, “Color Impressions,” are presentations of my sensitivity toward nature. I strive to compliment the organic with the geometric in my compositions. Their content is constructed of relationships of brush marks and color arranged to parallel nature, not to imitate it. I want to paint what nature freely gives us.