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| Claire Burke Claire Burke Curriculum Vitae Selected Exhibitions Alan Klukow Gallery 2008 London Design Festival, Best of British 2007 – 2008 Solo Show, Tallantyre Gallery 2006 Picture This with Damien Hirst, Sam Taylor Wood and Banksy 2006 Solo Show, St Giles Street Gallery, Norwich 2005 Cannes Art Fair 2005 The Hutson Gallery, Sackville Street 2004 Number 28, The Gallery on Cork Street 2002 – 2003 London Art, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro 2001 – 2004 Brilliant Corners, with Sandra Blow and Sir Terry Frost NSA 2001 Lemon Street Gallery 2000 – 2005 Solo Show, Broomhill Art Gallery, N Devon 2000 Critics’ choice NSA selected by Angela Flowers and Sandra Blow 2000 Thompsons Gallery, The September Show 2000 The Dark Show / The Light Show NSA 1999 Two man Show, Attendi Gallery, Claire Burke and Victor Passmore 1996 Solo Show, Salthouse Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall 1995 Art in a critical context, Chelsea 1995 Solo Show, Gstaad, Switzerland sponsored by Veuve Cliquot 1995 Cohn and Wolfe Selected Young Artists 1993 Prizes Live Art, Gstaad, sponsored by Veuve Cliquot 1994 Chichester Open, best artist under 26 1997 Miscellaneous Elected Life Member, Newlyn Art Society Residencies Kunsthouse, Eindhoven, Holland, 1993 Gstaad, Switzerland 1994 Kensington and Chelsea College 1995 Selected Private Collections Brian Eno Jasmine Al Fyed Richard Hughes (Keane) Earl Chichester CEO of visa international Selected Acquisitions for Permanent Collections London Institute/University of the Arts, London Iris Properties Ltd Mesirow Financial NYRSTAR The Connaught Advent International plc Claredon Bank Teaching Guest Lecturer St Martin’s School of Art, Slade School of Art 1995 Open University, Philosophy of Aesthetics 1994 – 1999 Kensington and Chelsea College of Art 1994 – 1997 Education Foundation, Falmouth College of Art 1990 – 1991 BA (Hons), Fine Art Painting, St Martin’s College of Art 1991 – 1994 Artist in Residence, Kensington and Chelsea College of Art 1994 – 1995 Each canvas is constructed by the artist – a very fine grade of linen is stretched over the hand made wooden frame. This is then primed with rabbit skin glue and oil primer, taking approximately 10 days to produce. She uses only the most superior quality of paint and a variety of traditional materials that date back to the Dutch masters The artist goes to these unusual lengths to ensure the longevity of the canvas. Claire’s paintings have an introspective quality; textural surfaces are juxtaposed with smooth planes and grazes in the surfaces, creating a spatial ambiguity and dynamic reminiscent of abstract expressionism and the ideas of Clement Greenberg. The work evades categorisation here however since although the artist has a strong desire to control meaning, there is a deference to post structuralism and deconstruction in that the subject invites indeterminate interpretation. There is an integrity within the mark making and a quality of line attained by a measured, controlled approach, marks are excavated from the existing paint surface rather than being superimposed upon it. An attention to the quality and detail of surface achieved by the repeated application and removal of many layers of paint results in much of the content of the work being the visible evidence of the process itself. The work ‘becomes’ which references itself, it opens and closes space. ‘Aesthetic value and meaning are no longer seen to be the products of the operations of a system, and have become fleeting and unstable phenomena, which can never be recaptured or even properly communicated. They must always be considered to be in the process of ‘becoming’, instead of being directed towards a prearranged goal.’ Stuart Sim The square holds a mythical symbolism within the history of modern painting; it is also a rejection of the precise definition of the aesthetic as described by the Fibbonacci Series or the Golden Section. Each work deliberately relates mathematically to the square, informed by the work of Robert Ryman and Josef Albers among others – exploring the tensions created within via the demarcation of the space. ‘The chief forms of beauty are order, symmetry and definiteness’ Aristotle This self-referential structure is a tool with which the artist limits the breadth of content within the work, aspiring to a specific aesthetic experience. ‘I paint without representational object’ Agnes Martin ‘A feeling of exquisite intelligibility and clarity we have in the presence of an object that is experienced with aesthetic intensity’ Clive Bell The artist aims further to constrain interpretation by maintaining a severely selective palette, essentially monochromatic and either positive or negative, colour is restricted to hues relating to the materials with which the work is constructed i.e. the wood and linen, the work again referencing itself. The intention is to control the potentially decorative, distracting aspect of colour, to emphasise the subject of the work. A particular management of space, light, colour and texture within a rigid self-referential structure, in order to provoke a subtle resonance, eliciting an arresting, beatific but deliberately detached relationship with the viewer, unique to the work of this artist. The sum of these factors is an underlying sense of internal space. The apparent certainty of the modernist imagery and precision of the picture planes create a relentless, repetitive architecture, undermined in an acutely reserved manner by the more organic surfaces and paint effects in ‘a search for aesthetic rightness”. Tim Marlow This becomes more apparent upon closer examination, conspiring to direct the audience towards a state of contemplation. An enigmatic sense of presence is evoked that gives rise to a meditative quality, a serenity and tranquillity, in dissonance with a sense of disturbance of the surface plane of the painting and the internal space of the viewer. | |||||
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