About the Artist:
Don Bergland is an Associate Professor Emeritus of Digital Art Education at the University of Victoria and has been an active exhibiting artist for over 50 years. During that time, he has worked through a variety of professional media, from oil on canvas to his current studio use of digital tools and techniques. He maintains an active international exhibiting career and has featured his artwork in over 160 major exhibitions throughout the world. Don has won over 70 creative ; professional awards for his work which is represented in major corporate and private collections such as the Gulf Oil Corporate Collection (Alberta), the Madrona Centre Permanent Collection (B.C.), the Canadian Utilities Corporate Collection (Alberta), the Timothy Eaton Foundation Collection (Canada), the Chevron Standard Corporate Collection (Alberta), as well as in private collections in Canada, the United States, and Europe. He has published 8 books dealing with art and creative activity, as well as published dozens of articles in scholarly and academic journals. His current studio focus is in using 3D modeling environments to create surrealistic imagery for international exhibitions. He currently lives and teach in Victoria, BC, Canada. Don constructs his artwork like theatrical presentations. The actors in each visual set interact with and perform for the viewer. Through the stylistic use of realism, exaggeration, subdued colors, and strong lighting and shadow, Don attempts to arrange the actors in a way that connects a pivotal object or theme with object association, symbolism, and metaphor, drawing background technique from Baroque and Victorian art. For him, the enclosed space of the visual image is a dramatic cerebral theatre populated by realistic sets, objects, and figures which when combined with intention, offer challenging mental enigmas.