Wyoming Arts Council

Dome artist’s work at home on the range

Uncategorized | September 1, 2009

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Brian Burkhardt’s glowing dome sets the stage for his fabricated hybrid plants and organisms to be presented at the UW Art Museum. Photo courtesy of Gallery Diet.

This info was posted on the UW Art Museum blog:

Florida artist Brian Burkhardt will be in Laramie this week to assist with the installation of his solo exhibition, “moss doesn’t grow on rolling stones . . . a vision of nature” by Brian Burkhardt.

Dome is the studio in which this rather “mad-scientist/artist” has playfully re-figured nature. His “Office Plant” series offer hybrids of plants and office machinery — cell phones and fax machines.

For his Wyoming exhibition, he has created a new work, “Take Heed,” an installation of caterpillers that include in braille “take” and “heed.”

Three public programs are scheduled at the UW Art Museum in Laramie during Burkhardt’s residency, all on Thurs., Sept. 3:
10:30 a.m., Gallery Talk-Through
6:30 p.m., Art Talk
7:30 p.m., Panel: “Scientists View Nature Through the Lens of Art: The Seen and Unseen.” UW faculty scheduled to respond to Burkhardt’s work include Naomi Ward (microbial genomics, Molecular Biology), Carlos Martines del Rio (ecophysiology, Zoology), Pete Stahl (microbial and fungal ecology, Renewable Resources), Stephen Jackson (director, Program in Ecology) and Jeffrey Lockwood (natural sciences and humanities, Philosophy).

Get more info on the Art Museum webpage and its press release.

Before he began to focus on art, Burkhardt was a field hand and then an organic farmer. Here’s a section of an article from Miami New Times about Burkhardt’s Gallery Diet show last winter:

Burkhardt says that conveying a sense of the symbiotic relationship between man and nature in a world we are threatening to destroy is what keeps him motivated to create during these economically grim times.

“As a farmer or as an artist, you are always worried about the market,” he rues. “To me, farming is like the art world in many ways. Right now I’m looking at my dome as a song with the sample of everything I’ve ever done inside it as the notes.”

Read the rest of the article at http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2008-11-13/culture/artist-brian-burkhardt-s-biodome-wows-in-wynwood/

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