Joana Bernd’s multidisciplinary practice unfolds at the intersection of tenderness, resistance, and embodied experience. Her work, spanning painting, performance, text, and installation, is rooted in a deep awareness of emotional landscapes and the quiet power of softness. Rather than aiming for linear resolution or definitive meaning, Joana invites us into open, affective spaces—spaces where ambiguity is not a barrier, but a bridge. Whether exploring personal grief or societal structures, her approach remains intuitive, fluid, and fiercely honest.

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Can you pinpoint a single moment in your life when you realised art was not just a passion but your purpose?

I want to put before what I say—like a shield—the fact that a passion is a veiled purpose, and I mean this deeply. It’s only a question of time until a deeper layer of passion reveals itself, maybe a bit like finding the seeds when eating an apple whole or if you follow a line, you’ll get deeper and deeper into the maze of your own bindings. And now that I’ve used enough metaphors to visualise what I’m about to say, I want to get to the point. Since studying textile design, I have always painted. But it did feel more like a passion, also a way of healing. In 2022, I went through a very rough phase, where it felt like the world I knew turned transparent—so fragile, as if it had grown glass bones. And I felt the same, just a movement away from bursting into pieces. It’s a poetic way to veil the struggle of dealing with anxiety and panic attacks. In that time, they’d hit me almost daily, taking away my breath and my sanity, and turning me into feeling like a wild animal trying to get out of its own skin. Creating art—back then still limited to painting—started to break open, because I felt the need to document my body in space, to make sure I exist. Every piece of art turns into a testament of my own existence, and of the love I feel for a world I was so scared to lose any second, not ready to leave behind. Painting turned into something that would soothe me and open doors to another kind of world, where the wild animal turned into a soft being, dissolving in tears or smiles. When I'm in the flow, there are no doubts and no fear—no second-guessing, overthinking, or trying to get out of my own body. It’s knowing the body is a safe vessel, and that there do indeed lie other worlds beneath our one.

 

Making art is a reminder of this very existential truth:

For now, I am here (and so is so much more)

How do you reconcile the tension between raw, innate creativity and the discipline required to master your craft?

Mainly through the absolute acceptance of the way I work: in resonance with the world! That means trusting my own feelings, also in how I work. It is crucial to have a good overview of different timelines, contacts, and work, which is why I have endless notebooks and to-do lists, haha. I wait for the window to open for each of them, rather than pushing myself. The good thing about being a visual artist is the way you can jump between languages. If I’m not feeling drawn to painting, I might take my body for a walk to the beach and suddenly feel a spark of inspiration there, to use my body. Or maybe I feel like writing poetry? Or even answering emails?! It’s a lot of thin lines to walk on, and together they make a bridge. For me, planning my day doesn’t work at all. But having an overview—and then deciding intuitively, based on what has ripened within me—does. Besides that, I’m learning to give my mind a break and not be scared of the silence. I love my machinery mind, always trying to get to the core of ( ), yet I sometimes forget its ability to enter a state of pure being, which is indeed needed to create space for clarity. I don’t like the word discipline, though. I don’t think discipline is needed, I think commitment and dedication are needed—and curiosity—and fuel to a flame. To me, that fuel has never been discipline. Discipline might be an outcome, a way to frame action or relation, but it has never been the firsthand drive to create the work for me.

How do you reignite creativity during those inevitable periods of self-doubt or stagnation?

To put it briefly: Through trust in the ashes.

 

To explain a bit deeper: Sometimes I manage to sit with the ashes (void) of that fire(work) that once burned (flowed). I manage and accept and rest, and calm down. But sometimes, I throw all kinds of things into the fire—a tired attempt to keep something close that has, for now, lost its force. It’s a tough truth to accept. But also one deeply tinted by our capitalist mindset—our idea of consistency, of business, of constant productivity. But really, the door opens and closes. Nothing is ongoing, and all real things ebb and flow, come forth and dissolve. When you're coming out of a phase where everything unravelled itself the moment you touched it with your small finger—and suddenly nothing unravels no matter how hard you try— chances are high that the best thing to do is: let it be, and wait for the calling. But—hands down—I sometimes freak out and get scared I’ve lost it. I think the difference lies in (1) the natural void and (2) the blockage.

 

Because those blockages are another kind of tough. And it helps to remember: don’t look at the work and judge it, rather bring it forth and create it. It’s mental to have the goal to create something extraordinary, something that will be so good it has a right to exist, something that solves all problems and will be liked by everyone. The truth is every work has the right to exist, and sometimes, by accident, you do create something extraordinary!!! No piece of art will solve all problems (no key opens all doors). And nothing is ever liked by everyone. There's liberation in that. It's more like clinging to the thing that resonates.

How does your art engage with or comment on pressing contemporary issues—social, political, or environmental?

My work engages with contemporary issues in a very tender way, like touching a wound that is still bleeding. I want to focus on tenderness, on softness, and the painful absence of both. I believe there are many ways to resist, with softness being one of them! I am an artist, but first, I am an intersectional feminist at heart, and I allow myself to explore that truth in a way that feels right for me. In my latest work, State of Woman, I investigated female rage and asked myself: How can I express this without tinting my voice? I used the metaphor of a dollhouse: all dreamy and pastel. Within it, I inhabited four different personas, each encountering a tipping point within the walls of this staged domesticity. It was both a play and a protest. Through movement, costume, and symbolism, I wanted to show how the home can become both a sanctuary and a cage. I don't think I'm in the position to offer answers, but on good days, I manage to trace something like an outline to a question.

Can art be truly therapeutic? Have you experienced its healing power personally, or seen it impact others?

Therapy, to me, means understanding; It’s like discovering that a clump of paper is actually made up of a thousand thin layers—each waiting to be unravelled. Art helps me give shape to those invisible layers. It offers another kind of form—a way to give truth a new shape, or to shapeshift, for example, tears into something non-fluid, more bearable (more seen). One of the most fundamental connections I have to art is the one it creates with myself, whether through my machine brain, my tender heart, or my burning belly, in resonance with the world. And that’s all on love – the love that invites to daydream, the love that invites to encapsulate, the love that invites to rage, the love that invites to fight and the love that invites to turn transparent and soft and blend in. But when I’m not in touch with those parts—when I haven’t moved through something, or when the noise (inner or outer) gets too loud—I lose access and turn silent. We often imagine healing as something monumental, but sometimes, healing is much smaller and much quieter. To me, it starts when I understand something new that feels very old. Or when I feel understood. And then, sometimes, it’s simply the act of being mirrored by the world, or by someone else. And I strongly feel that art holds space for all of that.

How do you challenge yourself to continually grow as an artist while remaining true to your voice?

Much of my work is like collecting fragments of meaning—sometimes I create them, sometimes I catch them as they float around me. I tend to work quite quickly; there’s often a moment of pure, intrinsic alignment when I don’t overthink and just follow the thread. In those moments, I’m completely dedicated. I don’t shy away from pushing the limits of what feels possible within my language. What I did shy away from, in the past, was the scale of time. I would often resist works that asked to unfold slowly—works that needed me to stay, to return, to let them shift shape over time, rather than just hold tight to the first truth I had felt. (If that makes sense.) In my latest work, State of Woman, I let a piece outgrow me for the first time. I combined many of the media I usually work with—painting, object-making, installation, costume, video performance—and staged four rooms at an abandoned beach, each with its own performance. It was the first time I really stuck with a concept all the way through the mock-up stage, allowed it to shift, and followed it into the unknown. It's still not completely finished, it has turned into a constant visitor of thought.

 

The theme—female rage and domestic prisons—felt planetary in scale, full of traps and echoes and inherited pain. It scared me, but at the same time, I felt I needed to pursue it. I wanted to! I had these cinematic visions in my head but knew that if I tried to translate them in a polished, commercial way, it wouldn’t be me (and, let’s be honest, I’d be broke). So I improvised, built things myself, and bargained for costumes. Sewed, painted, waited. Tried and failed, tried again. Somewhere in that loop of making and failing and making again, I suddenly found myself having built a world I could walk into!! That felt close to growth —letting something get bigger than you thought you could carry, and trusting it will carry you in return.

How important is it for viewers to understand the intended message of your work? Does ambiguity add value, or do you seek clarity in your expression?

In my work, I’m always seeking a kind of universal language—one that doesn’t rely on words. I want the piece to work on a visual, intuitive level; to be felt rather than decoded. Especially in my paintings, there’s no fixed message—more of an invitation to enter, to sense, to respond. I’m always curious what happens within people when they encounter my work. Every perception, every emotional echo, adds another layer to the piece—another window into it. I would never want to limit a work by insisting on my interpretation only. Being open to the viewer’s own fantasy, their own memories and feelings, is something I treasure. Of course, I think it matters that the context of my work is known—the themes I explore, the questions I ask, the frame I’m building from. But once that is there, people can feel and interpret freely. A truly powerful work of art, I believe, carries its own kind of aura—something you don’t need to fully understand to be moved by. It’s always about resonance, isn’t it? About opening a door—into the work, yes, but also into the heart of the one who sees it.

If you had only 24 hours left to create, how would you spend them?

Wait—what happens after those 24 hours? Do I disappear? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t spend the time creating at all. I’d want to be in the arms of my loved ones, or sit outside and watch the sky or pet an animal. Creation, in that moment, would be in the way I touch someone’s hand, or how I leave a trace behind in their memory. I think that's art, too.

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At its core, Joana’s practice is a gesture of trust: in intuition, in rhythm, and in the unseen processes that shape both art and life. Her works don't ask for quick understanding—they ask for presence. For Joana, growth often comes from slowing down, listening inward, and allowing complexity to unfold on its own terms. In doing so, she offers viewers not just art, but a quiet invitation: to feel, to reflect, and to find resonance in the in-between.