Learn to distrust your eyes at an exhibition of Charles Bierk’s impeccably photorealistic paintings
The portraitist Charles Bierk is a professional trickster: what look like black-and-white photographic portraits are actually impeccably rendered paintings. In his Niagara Street studio, Bierk photographs his friends, blows up the images and uses them as references for large-scale oil paintings on canvas. He studied painting under his father, the landscape artist David Bierk, who taught him to divide his canvas into a grid and paint square by square, millimeter by millimeter. In his debut solo exhibition, which starts today at Metivier Gallery on King West, he shows a series of images that transform depending on where you’re standing. From 20 feet away, they’re stark, striking portraits, coated in an eerie gloss of perfection. The closer you get, the more fascinating and flawed they become, as the stubble, pores and freckles take on gritty, abstract texture. We asked Bierk for a preview of some of his most arresting shots—and to tell us the stories behind them. Click through the image gallery to read what he had to say.
Nov. 13–Dec. 13. FREE. Nicholas Metivier Gallery, 451 King St. W., 416-205-9000, metiviergallery.com.
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- “He’s a photography student at OCAD. When Jalil arrived at my studio, his glasses were falling apart, held together by tape. I didn’t realize how crooked they were until I started painting them. It’s often an irregularity like that that inspires me to paint a certain face.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Jalil
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- “I met Jonas at the record release of <em>Spectral Dusk</em>, an EP from his band Evening Hymns. The album is about the death of his father, and having lost mine, it was on constant rotation at my studio. We bonded over that shared loss.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Jonas
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- “She’s the glue that holds this show together—I met at least 15 of my subjects through her. I would regularly ask Nadine to bring one or two people to the studio to photograph, and she’d show up with a dozen.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Nadine
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- “Lindsay is a film student from Etobicoke. Her beautiful shaved head is what made me want to paint her.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Lindsay
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- “My brothers Jeff and Alex introduced me to Allegra, who works as an event manager in Toronto. I only met her a few times, but I quickly knew I had to paint her.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Allegra
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- “Dave is the front man for the band Tokyo Police Club; I’ve been a fan for a long time. I was able to get him into my studio during a layover he had in Toronto. I was waiting for him to cut his hair and reveal those ears before I asked a mutual friend to make the introduction.”
- (Image: Charles Bierk)
- Dave
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