Scott Campbell, "Studio Visit: Peter Daniel Bernal", Ford Curatorial Fellow Blog. "Heavily influenced by the New Leipzig School, Bernal is a dedicated practitioner of figurative painting, attracted to the immediacy and directness of expressing the human condition that it affords. His socio-realist style of painting also incorporates elements from Pop-Art, comics, and the “sculpto-pictoramas” made famous by Red Grooms, leaving the viewer with something that feels both traditional yet innovative. And even though he is staunchly in the figurative camp, Bernal’s fascination with the pure materiality of paint itself is evident in the thick application, expressive brushstrokes, and luscious color that pervade his work."
Saylor Soinski, "125 Peter Daniel Bernal", Essay'd, May 25, 2019. "As Bernal paints, his brushstrokes build and blend to create depths and massed textures that he slowly, iteratively reshapes and repaints. His figures, often draped over each other in acts of care, violence, or some combination of the two, rise from the canvas. Through the vivid, evocative imagery he creates during this assiduous process of layering and scraping away, Bernal centers his practice in the intersection of his own identity and the broader politics of cultural heritage and masculinity."