Kayla Bernard

After the Prospect Park forest fire in November 2024, Bernard documented and gleaned from the aftermath. She found hollowed tree trunks, burned from the inside out-charred limbs and ashed bodies of the forest surrounding her. In response, Bernard began making casts of human forms in positions of despair—a way to give shape to this gentle pain.

She had two close friends sit for hours on their wooden floor as she wrapped their skin in drenched plaster, warm water pooling around them. Internal Wandering is a meditation on sensation, impermanence, and bodily disillusionment.

Kayla Bernard (b. 2003) is an interdisciplinary artist, merging photography, film, and sculpture, drawing on themes of spatial and temporal histories.