The emotional levity of a Sunday morning, the self-determination of unoccupied time. Dee Dee Bernhardt’s latest exhibit tours those precious hours in sites both familiar and imagined to be so.

At five feet wide, the painting “Sunday Morning” is a grounding presence in the exhibit. Using the Stout’s Shoe Building on Mass Ave as a model, Bernhardt heavily references Edward Hopper’s “Early Sunday Morning.” Hopper was an inspiration for Bernhardt throughout the creation of the exhibit, prompting her meticulous lighting study of each scene that ultimately plays with the viewer’s sense of time within the scene, as different angles reveal an embedded ambiguity of light and shadow.

In addition to modernist references, with clean lines and deep color saturation, Bernhardt also brings in another class of influences through impressionist-leaning pieces, particularly in the darker, more foggy scenes that I’m tempted to classify as nighttime.

Fair Well Ye Dreams of Night. Oil on Board, 2.5” x 3.5”

A unique set of circumstances led Bernhardt to utilize Google Earth and photos taken on an old trip to Indianapolis in order to construct her emotive urban snapshots. The resulting images exist as much in memory and mind as they do in a geographic reality. Some are recognizable scenes to Indianapolis locals, like Monument Circle, the Walker Theatre, and Duckpin Bowling, but others lean into a deconstructed view of building facades.

Rather than constrain the paintings with specificity, she “wanted [each] building to stand the test of time.” This approach, in which she “purposefully stripped the detail down,” also lends itself to a feeling of ‘everyplace.’ Familiarity reaches the viewer through a vagueness similar to that created by Bernhardt’s flexible depiction of light and shadow.

“Sunday Morning” will be on display in the Harrison Center’s City Gallery for the month of June. The exhibit can be viewed by appointment as well as in our online gallery, where all pieces are available for purchase.