Fred Burton
These current
works are distillations of memories of events in my life. They usually
refer to travels from the past twenty-five years and their sources are
diverse: living in the South of France and the West Indies; a sojourn
to North Africa; viewing the Book of Kells in Dublin. Peering back in
time, my mind diving into a jumbled collage of events formed through dreams
and improvisation, I try to transform these sensations into paint.
I look at pictures a lot. Looking at other art is analogous to athletes working out to reach top form or musicians practicing scales, except that viewing great images always reminds me that anything is possible.
My influences
are continually changing; I am interested in topographies and boundaries
because of the tensions they create in both life and art. Besides celestial
charts and antique
maps, I love all of the great old magicians, regardless of discipline:
Fedrico Fellini, Winsor McCay, Cesare Pavese and Adolf Wolfli immediately
come to mind.
The most difficult thing about painting is developing a unique world view while surviving long periods of acute frustration amidst brief moments of keen self awareness. The first rule is having faith in yourself. Everyday I strive to achieve what Baudelaire called impeccable naïveté, the ability to continually view the world anew, whether in the midst of adversity or great expectations. When I have days where I wonder if I'm any the wiser, I remember what the Northwest coast painter Morris Graves once said, that "life is a mad, sublime dance."
Photo of Fred Burton by Crawford Pile
Click image for larger view
