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TOM BURCKHARDT Symmetry Works September 3rd through October 29th Opening September 3rd 5pm to 7pm Followed by a potluck  Orange Hell, 2018, oil on linen, 60" X 96" TOM BURCKHARDT - Statement - 2017 to 2019 My recent paintings have explored the borderline between figuration in abstraction with an emphasis on the inherent perceptual bias we all share. The psychological concept of pareidolia, where figuration or faces are read in abstract visual phenomenon is key to these works. I use a rather traditional painting approach, with oil paint on linen, but have developed several adaptations, such as cutting commercial stretched bars with a jigsaw to establish a funkier, slightly discombobulated humanity to the visual perfection of the grid. I also use some unusual tools, such as rollers, scrapers and printing with stencils, bubblewrap or paper towels. My paintings develop from an intuitive and improvisational tradition in abstraction but when formal elements start appearing that offer suggestive hints of figuration I accept these leads and tease out the border which develops between the two. I imagine the project of establishing the recognition of a face and the (perhaps impossible) subsequent walking back from it towards abstraction as a worthy challenge. The goal is to simultaneously infect and dismantle the purity expected from abstraction and take the power of figuration and de-specify it. The paintings seem to be a type of portraiture, but of our perceptual viewing, not of mimetic appearance. In the most recent work, I make use of bilateral symmetry, extending the pareidolia concept into a powerful image I almost don't feel in control of. My process encourages this by design: I start by working on one side exclusively, improvising, until I feel I'm approaching something interesting, but incomplete. I then do a straight execution of the mirror image on the second canvas in an ala prima technique. To me the two halves have a very different nuance, or even opposite feeling, but when joined the power of the bilateral symmetry takes over and unite into a singular image that is not pre-determined by me. These works are informed by the concepts pioneered by Robert Fischer and Herman Rorschach regarding the nature of perception and empathetic reaction. Their concepts of “feeling in” (empathy, literally) treat our subjective perception equally as a projection and a consumption and tie in to paredolia as explained above. I am trying to create a highly active engagement with a viewer using some of these techniques. I’m very glad to be able to present this body of work fully for the first time. During its creation, I never had the opportunity and it has always seemed important to amass enough of these works in a large enough space to make the concept undeniable. |
 Axis Powers, 2018, 72 X 88 |
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Call and Response, 2018, oil,
44 X 104 |