Oil paintings & works on canvas
Prints & works on paper
Jodie Bermant is a second generation immigrant from Ecuador who grew up in Northern Virginia and has lived in Boston for the past five years. She is currently earning her BFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, having transferred from Bunker Hill Community College in the fall of 2025. Bermant’s artistic practice centers on observational painting, working primarily with oil paint in her still lifes and portraits. Materiality is integral to her work and she often builds textured surfaces with paint where her brush strokes remain visible. Through direct observation, Bermant explores the quiet intimacy of everyday objects as well as the presence of the human figure to create paintings that are both observational and experimental; inviting viewers to slow down and engage with moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. Bermant’s inspiration comes from a desire to capture fleeting moments and preserve them through paint. Whether depicting a still life or a live figure, Bermant uses paintings to slow down time and hold onto what is temporary, to transform fleeting experiences into tangible, lasting works.
My artistic practice focuses on observational painting, primarily working with oil paints to create still lives and portraits. Materiality is a central part of my process, as I work with thick applications of oil paint, building surfaces through layered textured marks. My process of building up paint creates a sense of depth to give the surface a dimensional presence. Through direct observation and application of texture, I depict the visual and quiet intimacy of everyday objects and scenes. In my exploration of color and texture, I create paintings that are both observational and experimental, an invitation to to slow down and engage in everyday scenes that otherwise might go unnoticed. I am drawn to using a saturated color palette in my work, using intensified hues as a way to activate a scene of a painting. Saturation has allowed me to connect my exploration of spatial relationships through contrasting values and temperatures, having color become a structural element to create depth and movement within a composition. By exaggerating chromatic intensity in my practice, it functions as a tool to balance warm and cool contrasts that push and pull against one another throughout the scene. My source of inspiration to create stems from a desire to capture fleeting moments and preserve them through paint, whether working from a still life arrangement or a live figure. Painting has become a way for me to slow down and extend these brief experiences, allowing me to hold onto what is temporary in a life that can feel so fleeting. In this way, my work becomes both a record of observation and an attempt to preserve meaningful moments I experienced that I can visually transform into something tangible.
Commissions, exhibitions & enquiries welcome