www.montereycountynow.com DECEMBER 25-31, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 35 ART Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Bernard Trainor is a high-end landscape architect who is applying his designer’s eye to paintings—abstract, yet very much inspired by nature, complex in form and rich in color and texture. For a while, Trainor had been looking for a space to create his larger pieces and he eventually found one on Broadway in Seaside. His gallery is not easy to spot—a former auto shop with a small sticker in the window people can scan to find out what’s going on inside. Yet it’s there, sometimes open when Trainor happens to be working, and by appointment. “I don’t want to overpower the neighborhood,” Trainor says. “It has refreshing authenticity.” When he has the front door open, passers-by peek in, which leads to interesting conversations. Many people ask when the gallery will have a grand opening, but Trainor does “sort of the opposite” of a traditional gallery approach. He considers the studio, which is occupied by large acrylic pieces that represent his memories of landscapes, as a space for installation, not a gallery with art for sale. “I know landscape in a completely different way [than a trained painter],” he says. “I spent my whole life working with it, in awe of it. I paint not to reflect the landscape, but the feeling of it.” Trainor painted as a child, without showing his art to anybody. His practice as a painter intensified circa 2010. Since then, he has had private exhibits and shows at architecture studios in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He sells his work directly to other designers, architects and his landscape clients. Among his works there is a yearlong study of his garden and landscapes he encounters when hiking, layering colors and textures. He paints from memory, recalling the same subject matter in various circumstances and light, be it his childhood in Australia or documenting fragile landscapes of the Central Coast. His colors are many, drawn from various hues of sand, yellows, ivory, pale pink and copper. Some come on stronger, others are muted. Multidisciplinary by nature, Trainor explains how his painting philosophy is informed by his work with landscape. “It has the fourth dimension of life and death, ever-changing, like nature,” he says. Bernard Trainor’s studio is at 615 Broadway Ave., Seaside. Open by appointment. bernard@groundstudio. com, bernardtrainor.com. BERNARD TRAINOR In Context Bernard Trainor pursues abstract painting with ‘a different type of eye.’ By Agata Popęda These paintings, by landscape architect and multimedia artist Bernard Trainor, come from his Sand Garden series devoted to how sea overlays with land. NEW YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATION SEVENTH & DOLORES SEVENTH & DOLORES STEAKHOUSE 10PM - 1AM | 21 AND OVER TICKETS: $70 IN ADVANCE - $100 AT THE DOOR WITH DJBADDJ & CARMEL DELIGHTS CLASSIC COCKTAILS - BOTTLE SERVICE INCLUDES COMPLIMENTARY MIDNIGHT BUBBLES TOAST RSVP AT 7DSTEAKHOUSE.COM
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