Dickinson Artists on Display Spotlight — Sean Berg: Experiences & Perspectives

One look at twenty-nine year old artist Sean Berg’s creations is all you need to understand that he draws from his individual experiences and perspectives as his inspiration.  

The Cedar Valley based artist’s work uses an assortment of mediums, including oil and dry pastels, markers, paints, pens, resins, polymers, and collage, often all in a combination to translate his own experiences and perspective lenses into unique scenes that others can then begin to digest in their own ways and time. 

“I encourage viewers to understand these presented scenes through a specific perspective lens, but I also want people to see it in their own way and not be bound to my own,” Berg said.

His recent work is focused on layering non-traditional mediums while simultaneously using independently developed color palettes to create his own versions of unique work. The unconventional tools he uses aid in conveying the perspective lenses he finds most interesting. Undeniably, he uses an assortment of these lenses to create from, borrowed from himself and those around him, but most often, he finds himself returning to his experiences through childhood wonder, confusion, and processing, which then goes on to create what he believes to be his best and most honest work.

Berg said he processes adult experiences both typical and atypical while pondering a childhood that is simultaneously delayed, advanced, and prolonged, something only gained though lives lived and experiences stacked. "I aim to use this abstracted view of my experiences to allow a viewer to understand a scene in a way they wouldn’t normally expect while also allowing myself the ability to reclaim my own childhood in the process," he said. 

In order to achieve this, Berg draws on inspirations from artists who break defined barriers and create their own paths in both style and inventiveness, including such vastly varied artists as Bill Sienkiewicz (revolutionary comic and portraiture artist), Mark Bradford (mixed-media), Stony (modern visual and graffiti), Trenton Doyle Hancock (mesher of comics and fine art), and Robert Crumb (underground independent comic creator of vast fame).

As Berg continues expanding on his own original ideas, and those ideas he inherits from his betters and priors, tearing them down and reconstructing them as often as possible, he looks to higher education as his most likely next step to further develop himself and his own ideas/creations.

Berg is currently finishing out his BFA at UNI with an exhibition this December. Berg’s work can also be seen on display throughout 2020 at the Dickinson Law offices as part of the Artist on Display Program. If you are an aspiring artist interested in an innovative avenue to display your work to the public, we encourage you to submit an online application for the 2021 program today.

For more information on Berg’s art, visit www.seanbergart.com.