I am constantly amazed at how Brian Burke can do so much with so little. As a major collector of Brian’s work, I am in awe of his ability to evoke so much emotion, as in the painting above (Burke-3). His works evoke Edward Hopper, Dianne Arbus and early works of Richard Diebenkorn.
For me, there are two kinds of painters—those who have great concepts, and those who have mastered the execution of painting. Brian excels at both. He has the concept, and knows instinctively how to bring it to life through color, brush stroke, and his signature minimalist presentation, that begs for closer examination. For example, Brian will often paint an image that at once appears simple and straight forward, but if you sit with his images, you can begin to see that the subtext is where Brian was heading, and God is in the details.
In Burke-3, I see a bird that is bloated and in advanced age, perched on a branch in the dead of winter, the branch appearing dead perhaps, and with the weight of the bird, perhaps incapable of maintaining the bird’s weight. And the bird, looking too frail to fly away seems stuck; its arthritic wing perhaps too stiff and old to carry the weight of the corpulent body. Can the branch maintain the bird? Is the bird capable of launching itself into flight. Is the bird at the end of its rope? The pathos is so profound, its sad, but you “feel” for the bird. Brian makes you enter his world, where he can make you empathize with the most pedestrian of images. Life is fragile, people are fragile, and our world is fragile. Brian is an artist for our time.
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I am constantly amazed at how Brian Burke can do so much with so little. As a major collector of Brian’s work, I am in awe of his ability to evoke so much emotion, as in the painting above (Burke-3). His works evoke Edward Hopper, Dianne Arbus and early works of Richard Diebenkorn.
For me, there are two kinds of painters—those who have great concepts, and those who have mastered the execution of painting. Brian excels at both. He has the concept, and knows instinctively how to bring it to life through color, brush stroke, and his signature minimalist presentation, that begs for closer examination. For example, Brian will often paint an image that at once appears simple and straight forward, but if you sit with his images, you can begin to see that the subtext is where Brian was heading, and God is in the details.
In Burke-3, I see a bird that is bloated and in advanced age, perched on a branch in the dead of winter, the branch appearing dead perhaps, and with the weight of the bird, perhaps incapable of maintaining the bird’s weight. And the bird, looking too frail to fly away seems stuck; its arthritic wing perhaps too stiff and old to carry the weight of the corpulent body. Can the branch maintain the bird? Is the bird capable of launching itself into flight. Is the bird at the end of its rope? The pathos is so profound, its sad, but you “feel” for the bird. Brian makes you enter his world, where he can make you empathize with the most pedestrian of images. Life is fragile, people are fragile, and our world is fragile. Brian is an artist for our time.