Fabian L. Bernal is an artist, curator and designer based in New York. Bernal grew up in the small city of Pereira, Colombia where his earliest memories are drawing and working with ceramics.
Bernal is known for the geometric shapes in his works, drawing on influences from abstract and minimalist art in the 1960s. His training as a graphic designer combines layout and color blocking influences from the ad industry with patterns reflecting his upbringing during Colombia’s civil war.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Bernal was influenced by the two diametric environments in which he was raised: a rural coffee farm and a small manufacturing facility in the city. The shapes in Bernal’s paintings and ceramics reflect these influences. If one looks close enough, they will see patterns for pants, shirts, baseball caps and stuffed animals merged with natural elements of plants and people.
Art and design have been at the heart of Bernal’s professional work, starting as a calligrapher at the young age of 13 for renowned stationary company Timoteo. While commencing his design degree at San Martin University in Bogota, his early knowledge of Mac computing allowed him to begin a career in advertising at the age of 15 for DDB Needham followed by Y&R and BBDO in Medellín.
Bernal relocated to the United States in 2004 and completed his master’s in interior design at Corcoran College. Bernal founded the Meat Market Gallery in Washington, D.C. in 2006 which gave a platform for artists in the area to showcase their work and featured more than 24 exhibitions. In 2008, Fabian began curating public installations and performance art and made his curatorial debut at Performance Week D.C. with seventeen artists engaging in site-specific performances and art installations.
He then moved to New York where he co-founded a gallery and in 2013, in partnership with Samuel Draxler, he conceived the New York Performance Artists Collective (NYPC), an organization dedicated to advancing the production, accessibility, and scholarship of performance and intermedia art.
As a consultant, Bernal oversaw the curation and development of art content for Mattel’s Barbie-Style Instagram, working with galleries, artists, museums and art education institutions. His interior styling for photoshoots can be seen on the front cover of design magazines and his graphic design work has resulted in several best-selling art books.
In 2021, he started Good Morning Bellport, a Flower Pop-up Shop and floral events company with a mission to spark joy and create community.
Most recently, his paintings can be found at galleries in New York and Washington, D.C. Today his passion for curation harnesses the performance arts as a catalyst for building community.