The Artist

Ber Lazarus' development as an artist really began in his late twenties while he was working as a community worker in the Inuit villages of Northern Quebec. There, for the first time, he was exposed to the process of art-making while working with the local sculptors and printmakers. He was hooked. Returning to Montreal, Lazarus enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Concordia University which he completed with distinction. While in attendance he was especially drawn to the work of the surrealists, Marcel Duchamp and his "Readymades" in particular. The effects that the scale of a sculptural work has on viewers became of exploratory interest for him after studying the work of Henry Moore. And sculptural forms in motion, so elegantly created by Alexander Calder, also entered Lazarus' artistic vocabulary. Lazarus currently lives and works in his home studio in Mile End, Montreal.

Art is the space between possibility and actuality, between the idea of a work and the actual work itself, what Lazarus calls the 'Zed-space'. In that ineffable space, he plays with found objects, images and ideas, creating new objects, images and ideas thus contributing to the cosmic cycle of generation, decay and regeneration through art. His objectives in the process are a) to quite simply "make a good picture" as Jeff Wall, the photographer, liked to say; b) to provide the art viewer with an aesthetic experience that continues to resonate long after they view a work, and c) introduce new ways of seeing. Within this process the natural world elides with the industrial.

But why found objects? In part, the detritus of industrial civilization and the offerings of nature are plentiful and cheap (mostly free) but more importantly each object brings additional layers of representation and meaning to a compostion, be it pictorial or sculptural. There is a lot more to work with. A bone is a bone but it is also a form, has texture(s) and colour. A house from the board game Monopoly can be used to represent a 'house' but it is also the colour green, which will resonate, or not, with other colours. And so on.

Objects fill our existence. Without them our lives would be empty indeed. Every object 'speaks' and a multitude of objects together speak volumes. Lazarus' work is in bringing together specific arrangements of objects to create a coherent and aesthetically stimulating whole. This finds expression in all his work be it his ongoing series of unique miniature surrealist installations in Ex-Libris, his objects in motion series, Kinetic Sketches and his most recent series, Object Art.

Recent work from the "Object Art" series: By the Dock of the Bay, Tzion [Graetz, History of the Jews] frcm Ex-Libris.
Davinci's Bone from Kinetic Sketches

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (selected)

2015 Object Art / Ex Libris Bookworks, Centre d'art E.K. Voland, Montreal, Quebec
2010 Kinetic Sketches, Festiv'Art de Frelighsburg, Frelighsburg, Quebec
2009 PodMotion, OffInterarts, Montreal, Quebec.
2009 Rising Arches, OffInterarts, Montreal, Quebec.
2008 Ex Libris, Maison Beaudry House, Pointe aux Trembles (Montreal), Quebec.
2006 Still Life in Motion, Centre Créativité Gesù, Montreal Quebec
2006 Ex Libris Espace Agrandi, Maison de la Culture Mercier, Montreal, Quebec
2005 Ex-Libris, Galerie Luz, Montreal, Quebec
2005 Ex Libris: Espace Agrandi, Centre d'Exposition des Gouverneurs, Sorel,QC
2005 Ex Libris, Centre d'Art Rotary, La Sarre, Quebec.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (selected)

2010 Ex Libris:Exile, Festiv'Art de Frelighsburg, Frelighsburg, Quebec
2008 expol'EAUshow: Galerie Pink, Montreal
2007 ABC Artist Books: The Gallery,Northampton University,Northampton, UK
2005 Book Art - Int'l Juried Exhibition Herbst Int'l Exhibition Hall, World Council for Arts and Culture, San Francisco, CA.
2004 La Vida - WEGWAY International Juried Exhibition, Propellor Centre for the Visual Arts, Toronto

PRIZES
2010 SECOND PRIZE: Ex Libris: Exile, Festiv'Art de Frelighsburg, Frelighsburg, Quebec
2004 FIRST PRIZE : Ex-Libris: La Vida, WEGWAY - Int'l Juried Exhibition, Propellor Centre for the Visual Arts, Toronto, ON

EDUCATION
1991 Bachelor of Fine Arts (with distinction) Concordia University, Montreal

PUBLICATIONS
2003 Babel Of Desire WEGWAY Fall 2003 #6: Artist Magazine, Toronto
2001 Babel Of Desire MATRIX Winter 2001 #58: Literary Review, Montréal

PRESS/MEDIA REVIEWS

2006 MARIE EVE COURCHESNE Le Flambeau, Montréal, fevrier 2006
LE LIVRE REVISITÉ SELON BER LAZARUS

2005 Interview with Pierre Archambault "Espace Visuel"Radio Centreville CINQ FM 102.3
EX LIBRIS: ESPACE AGRANDI

JOHN GRANDE Vie des Arts, Montreal, Quebec, March 2005
EX LIBRIS: ENLARGED SPACE

À TOUT LOISIR Les 2 Rives, Sorel, Quebec, May 2005
EX LIBRIS:ENLARGED SPACE

YVON AUDET, Écho, La Sarre, Quebec, January2005
EX LIBRIS: ENLARGED SPACE

Interview with Julie Lambert "Espace Culturel"Radio-Canada North, January 2005
EX LIBRIS: ENLARGED SPACE

2001 HEATHER SOLOMON Canadian Jewish News, Montreal, August 2001
LAZARUS LEADS EYE INTO BOOK SCULPTURE

PROFESSIONAL MEMBER
Association of Artists in the Visual Arts of Quebec (RAAV)