Continuum
By CHARLES BURWELL
2 October – 27 October, 2007
Opening Reception with the Artist
First Friday, October 5th, 6 - 8:30 pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10am – 6 pm
The Bridgette Mayer Gallery is pleased to present gallery artist Charles Burwell's newest collection of work titled Continuum. The show will feature new oils on canvas with sizes ranging from 15' x 15" to 60" square and digital and mixed media works on paper.
Burwell's most recent collection of work explores the relationship between geometric structure and organic flow of nature. Burwell utilizes works on canvas as well as on paper, combining forms derived from biology, archeology and natural history.
Where one work ends, another begins - creating an ongoing sensation of connection and growth. Each work extends, complements, or reacts to recycled forms. Complex layers of paint blend subtly into the background, enhancing depth. The penetrating layers of asymmetric and symmetric forms create an incredible texture, aided also by the presence of dripping, grids and templates.
Clusters create spatial markers; organisms suspended on the canvas. The use of computer imaging allows for further exploration of these forms, while maintaining a very natural appearance. The emergence of innovative linear angles and shapes also allows Burwell to utilize negative images and create hybridizations. Whether in color or black and white, Burwell's fantastic creations demonstrate his passion for a greater understanding of our ever-changing world, both natural and technological.
As Burwell states, "Process, and a formal rather than emotional method of constructing abstract paintings has been my approach to making art since the early 1990’s. A linear graphic sensibility and the exploration of complex linear forms continue to be a dominant part of how I develop paintings and drawings. The works I’ve been making involve a specific layering process that relies on the interaction of the controlled dripped line, maze like linear forms, and organic and geometric shapes. The paintings are constructed one layer of forms at a time, starting with layers of drips that have a specific color structure. The forms I use are part of a constantly evolving vocabulary of shapes that began with organic forms I started developing in the early to mid 1980’s."
Charles Burwell resides in Philadelphia, PA. He received his MFA in Painting from Yale University, New Haven, CT and his BFA in Painting from Temple University,Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Burwell has had twenty one solo and over sixty group exhibitions in the U.S., as well as internationally in Denmark and Brazil. He has received numerous awards and residencies including the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Grant, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, two PA Council fellowships in painting, residencies at The Studio Museum in Harlem, N.Y.C., the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA,, Dartmouth College, the Millay Colony, Ucross Foundation, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and a US Information Agency Grant for travel and lectures in the Middle East. He has had visiting teaching positions at various schools including, Tyler School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Dartmouth College, and Ohio State University. Charles has been a visiting lecturer and critic at Swarthmore College, American University, Trinity College in Hartford,CT, Yale University, Brandeis University, Rhode Island School of Design, University of Penn, Mass. College of Art, and the University of DE.