Brian Burke

Home: Murray Harbour, PEI
Title: John Greer
Media: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 80 x 80 cm

Artist Statement

The eye black-out was a device which I employed in some 1990s works to signify the idea that there are no definitive answers given up by a painting. I’ve returned to this device in this instance because it has been my experience that some sitters are unnerved by the experience of “being painted”. They feel that their innermost self will be exposed to public examination; that the black out will be removed from the eyes. Not that Greer entertains any of these misgivings. I’m merely alluding to this more universal idea of the sitter unmasked.

Biography

The paintings have been exhibited in public art institutions including, Confederation Centre Art Gallery, Charlottetown; Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton; Design Exchange Toronto; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland. Brian Burke received support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Prince Edward Island Council of the Arts. Since the 1980s the work was presented in many solo exhibitions with various galleries in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto, Quebec, St. John’s Nfld, Fredericton NB, Germany and Switzerland; Brian Burke lives and works in Murray Harbour Prince Edward Island and in Ebikon/Lucerne Switzerland.