Inga Bard was born on the eve of the dissolution of the USSR in Odessa, Ukraine and became a naturalized US citizen after emigrating with her family as political refugees at the age of ten. Everyone always knew that Inga would be an artist and so she went off to study art in Miami soon after quitting high school. Since then, she has studied, taught and created art in Florence, Italy, London, Uk and now San Francisco. In her studio practice, Inga Bard is captivated by the relationships between public imagination and propaganda and as a cultural producer, she sees it as her responsibility to constantly examine and redefine the status quo. She often inverts imagery into its photographic negative as a way of pointing to the skewed, misinformed and spectacularized hyper-reality we live in. Other times, she uses paint to reflect darker or more ironic nuances of everyday life. Yet no matter what environment the subjects of these paintings find themselves in, Bard always aims to paint their flesh in ways that highlight and insist on their shared humanity.
Inga Bard’s work has been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Soho Fluorescent Festival in London, the HK Art Fair with Mendes Wood Gallery in Hong Kong, the Museo Villa Bardini in Florence, and many more. Bard has created several public art projects including murals for the City of Flint, Michigan, as well as the Autocom Nissan Dealership in Oakland, Interchange Counseling Institute in San Francisco, and the city of Dunedin, Florida. Recently Bard founded Art for Civil Discourse (ACD), a project that brings communities together to spark conversation. By inviting citizens to collaborate in the creation of public artwork, ACD helps engage and inspire neighborhoods to dissect reality and dream together.