Born in Germany and shaped by the post-war immigrant experience in Canada, veteran artist Heidi Berger has led a peripatetic life across France, Mexico, and Germany and Canada.
However, Barbados has remained her constant since the 1970s. It is where she spends six months each year, getting away from the cold, here to enjoy the sunny days and warm nights associated with the island. It’s also where she spends much of her time either teaching art or simply painting at her Shop Hill, St Thomas studio.
It was when she was eight years old that Heidi’s parents moved to Canada. There, she studied languages at the University of Waterloo, and went on to obtain a PhD in German literature. She also attended two other universities, including the Sorbonne University in Paris, where she studied French.
Heidi made the decision to enter the teaching profession and taught German literature at the University of Waterloo, the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta, all in Canada.
She set foot on Barbadian soil for the first time in 1976. And for the following 20 years, her family became regular visitors to the island, spending time with her mother who had moved to Barbados.
After her husband retired, the two decided to make Barbados their home away from home and have been making their annual trips to the island between October and April, for the past 25 years. The remaining months are spent in Canada.
“In total, I have been coming to Barbados for 50 years,” she proudly told Buzz during an interview earlier this week.
Although she began painting as a teenager, and was considered to be “extremely talented,” Heidi’s father was not in agreement with her pursuing art as a career choice.
“My father did not consider that being an artist was a good choice,” she shared.
But a time of transitioning was in the making, and many years later, Heidi transitioned from being a “closet artist” to a full-time practitioner in the 1990s.
A self-taught artist, whose work will be on display during the all-female art show, ECHO, which opens on Sunday, at the Gallery of Caribbean Art, Speightstown, St Peter and runs until April 8, Heidi actually started painting professionally 30 years after retiring from her other jobs.
She exhibited her work for the first time in Barbados back in 1998, at the Verandah Art Gallery, which, at that time was located upstairs the Women’s Self Help on Broad Street, The City.
She has participated in over 50 international exhibitions, including shows she has done with well-known artist Bill Grace, who has since passed on. Her most recent art
show was the 2025 “Bridgetown” show at the Gallery of Caribbean Art.
According to Heidi, art has always been her way of communicating, of expressing emotions, of telling stories.
“I have also always been fascinated by people around me, particularly the people of Barbados, and especially the women of Barbados.
“Most of my life I have spent painting these women. They have mostly been single “family” women.
“I am aware that 30 years ago the single mother was quite common. Women kept things together. They raise the children and they made the money.
“What I try to do is paint the inside of women – their dreams, their thoughts. I have used several models over the years – women of varying ages – the young and the old, and children as well.”
The work of Heidi, who founded the Artist Studio Tours Barbados, in 2019, is deeply influenced by the Japanese aesthetic of wabi-sabi – the beauty of the imperfect and incomplete. She specialises in mixed media, collage, and the ancient art of encaustic, using molten wax and fire to create narratives from fragmented histories.
“Nowadays, I paint in mixed-media. It is a combination of collage, acrylic, and I work a lot with encaustic.
In addition to her participation in ECHO, Heidi’s work will simultaneously be on display during Changes, another art exhibition being held this month at the Queen’s Park Art Gallery.
To best sum up her life as an accomplished creative, Heidi had this to say: “My life is art, and my life is a work of art.” (Cheryl Harewood)
