PRUE GIBSON is fascinated by the intertwining of whimsical narrative, art historical reference and the sheer perfection of Kate Bergin’s paintings of birds and animals.

Kate Bergin’s animal paintings pay homage to Leonardo da Vinci, Carl Vernet and Juan Sanchez Cotan. Her ‘memory follies’ serves to question what is more real — the painting or the painting of the painting. After a lifetime of looking, who among us can be truly sure that what we see is truthful or concocted, sincere or satirical. Whose merry tune are we dancing to?

For the last twenty years, Bendigo-based Bergin has been absorbed with painting still life. She has been “searching for life, some energy and a dash of fun, a way to make still life less still”. History is rich with artists who have delved into the complexities of still life or natura morte — Frenchman Jean Baptiste Oudry 1686–1755, American William Harnett 1848–1892, the Dutch artists Samuel van Hoogstraten 1627–1678 and Pieter Claesz 1597–1660. Often dismissed as the stuff of students, still life is a genre that can weave allusions, conceal hidden meanings, reflect moral and religious theories, shudder with ominous intrigue or reveal, as Bergin describes, ‘narrative menace’.

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Image: Kate Bergin, They Come and Go Talking of Leonardo, 2008, oil on canvas, 168 x 198cm.