Art Reviews

Maurice Taplinger for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Opening New Worlds"
Bernardo Diaz suggest the complexity of human relationships in his neo-expressionist painting Family Portrait, in which bizarrely distorted figures are connected by strange abstract forms, hinting at the sometimes negative emotional ties that bind us by blood.

Marie R. Pagano for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Selections of Artist Recent Works"
Bernardo Diaz’s abstract paintings in acrylic and pumice on canvas were effective for both their intense colors and the artist’s use of tactile areas of rough texture. Like the great Spanish Antonio Tapies, Diaz employs mixed media to create seductive surfaces that appear ravaged by time.

Peter Wiley for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Images"
Then there is Bernardo Diaz, another painter heretofore unfamiliar to this reviewer, whose abstract acrylics on canvas are notable for vigorous paint application and strong color. Diaz employs shard-like shapes combined with fiery and earthy hues to create compositions filled with verve and energy that makes one eager to see more of his work. Like the other abstract artists included in this show, he employs forms that are allusive enough to be termed even when their meanings cannot be clearly discerned.

Peter Wiley for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Looking Out / Looking In"
Among the abstract painters in the show, the canvases of Bernardo Diaz stood out for their sandy, relief-like surfaces and earthy yet vibrant colors. In terms of their rugged surfaces, one would be tempted to compare Diaz’s paintings to the tachisme of Tapies; however, this young New York artist has evolved a vocabulary of enigmatic and lively signs and symbols that owe nothing to the somber Spanish master.

Jeannie McCormack for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Eco-Fusion"
With their jumbled features, brilliant colors, and intriguing distortions, some of Bernardo Diaz’s figures look like escapees from Picasso paintings who have found new happiness in the strident environment of the German Expressionist! Diaz, however, is not an appropriationist. Rather, this intrepid American painter has assimilated and transformed a variety of art historical influences to forge his own unique style. We are especially taken with Diaz’s large canvas Detached Crossing, with its brilliantly colorful figure grouping texturally enhanced through the use of pumice mixed with acrylic paints

Maurice Taplinger for Gallery & Studio Magazine.
"Silent Words"
Bernardo Diaz’s abstract canvases are aggressively suggestive as their titles. In both Revenged Crazed and Propagandist Diaz employs bold angular shapes, areas of a strident color, and abrasive collage elements to make the point that the world, although a harsh place, can surprise us with sudden bursts of beauty.