Shake It Up Australia Founding Director Clyde Campbell had the privilege of officially opening Berry artist Bernard Mcgrath’s ‘Shaken’ exhibition last Thursday to a packed crowd of over 200 at the Queen St Gallery in Woollahra.

Bernard McGrath is an Australian, self taught contemporary artist based in Berry, NSW. Working primarily in acrylic, his mixed media works combine loud, vivid colours and textures creating a highly unique energy on canvas. Bernard’s works are created by what he calls his “splash and slash method” where he splashes, throws and layers paint onto a canvas and then shakes it whilst the paint is wet forming different shapes and textures.

The exhibition is Bearnard’s first, with a portion of the sales of the paintings being donated to Shake It Up. Bernard has had no formal training and attributes his growing artistic talents to a procedure he had in 2008 known as Deep Brain Stimulation for the treatment of his early onset Parkinson’s Disease. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) uses an implantable medical device similar to a cardiac pacemaker, which treats the main symptoms of advanced Parkinson’s disease by delivering electrical stimulation to a precisely targeted area deep within the brain.

Bernard believes this procedure also stimulated the right side of his brain as prior to the operation he appreciated art but had never participated in any artistic endeavours. Bernard loves his newfound creativity and finds it a great form of therapy for his Parkinson’s Disease.