Artist Info
Bernard Bloom
Bloom was born in Montreal and earned his BA in Political Science from Concordia University before moving to Alberta in 1963. He attended the Emma Lake Artists Workshop (1975) while studying with Hugh Hohn (1973 – 1976), the Artistic Director for the Banff Center who later became head of the Computer Learning Labratory at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. After furthering his skills through the Visual Arts Advanced Studio Program at the Banff Centre for the Arts (1983 – 1984), he took the Critical Writing Workshop at the University of Saskatchewan, and then earned his BFA with Distinction from the University of Calgary (1989) and his MFA from the University of Oklahoma at Norman (1993).
Bloom’s varied artistic output includes solo singing performances from John Cage’s Songbooks at the Banff Centre in 1983, and a role in the Canadian feature film Birds of Prey. He’s delivered twenty public lectures, and his photographs and articles have appeared in ten publications including New Theatre Quarterly produced by the University of Cambridge Press in the UK. For more than twelve years he taught at post-secondary institutions including the University of Oklahoma, Casa de Cultura in Esteli, Nicaragua, and the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, BC. He was the Executive Director of the National Exhibition Centre in Castlegar, British Columbia (1978-1983) and worked as the Gallery Manager of Latitude 53, the artist run centre in Edmonton (1984-1986).
Bloom has mounted several solo exhibitions, including Wilderness at the Edmonton Art Gallery, Wilderness and Slide Journal at the Prince George Art Gallery in Prince George, BC, and Words and Pictures in Nicaragua at the Lightwell Gallery of the University of Oklahoma at Norman. His numerous group exhibitions including Visioning Palestine at the Pitt International Galleries in Vancouver, Topnotch at the Harcourt House Gallery in Edmonton, and The Sixth Annual Erotic Art Exhibit at the Paseo in Oklahoma City. His photographs dwell in the public collections of the University of Alberta Hospital, the Banff Centre for the Arts, and the University of Alberta. He’s won numerous awards for photography and writing.
Bloom lives and works in Edmonton.
