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From: PRESS RELEASE
Date: 29 Jun 2010
Time: 14:26:19 -0500
DOUG BURTON Continuum Private View: Wednesday 7th July, 6-10pm Exhibition Dates: 7th July – 1st August 2010 Opening times: Thursday – Sunday 12-6pm Artist-in-conversation: 2pm, Saturday 17th July Schwartz Gallery presents the work of Doug Burton showing a new body of work that has been in development for the last 2 years. ‘Continuum’ consists of a wax sculpture installation, computer-generated animation and a large-scale 3D stereoscopic floor installation that together aim to push the viewers’ sensory experience and in turn question the notion of perceived reality and the viewers’ engagement with it. The physical manifestation of layers of history that are in a continuous state of flux is at the core of Burton’s work. Burton’s solo exhibition explores a sense of the primordial and the viewer’s psychological passage that would take them through shifting states as they engage with the work. In ‘Continuum’ the floor is printed with a pattern of a fragmenting earth that, as it fractures and separates, reveals the city’s essence beneath. The pattern that is formed is punctuated by the architecture of the environment that it envelops, creating incidents within the space that are accentuated by the 3D stereo effect. ‘Umbilicus’ is formed by a heavily modeled surface, echoing the remnants of some alien world or combusted reaction, where the morphology of the forms influence the troughs and peaks of its topography, the resulting wax casts replicate themselves enveloping and forming the entirety of the surface. ‘Straw Dog’ uses a sacrificial object to create a portal between the artist and the essence of the object, taking the title and starting point for the work from Lao Tzu’s, Tao Te Ching, Chapter 5, “Heaven and earth are ruthless and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs; the sage is ruthless, and treats the people as straw dogs. Is not the space between heaven and earth like a bellows?” Doug Burton graduated from Winchester School of Art in 1998 and completed his post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools in 2002. Current and recent shows include; National Sculpture Prize, Broomhill Sculpture Park, Devon 2010; “Galileo, Galileo” Arts Council and Royal Astronomical Society Funded Group Show, London, 2009. He is a tutor at Byam Shaw School of Art. http://www.dougburton.net/ With generous support from Jesmonite Press contact: info@schwartzgallery.co.uk www.schwartzgallery.co.uk Copyright 2010 Schwartz Gallery