The series of free-standing screens presented by Luke Burton at GRANPALAZZO 2017 function as both decorative furniture as well as freestanding paintings. The screens are painted on both sides, adapting and extending some of the architectural and decorative features and imagery that can be seen within the palace and its grounds, producing a series of ‘false’ memories or visual feedback. The installation will also be accompanied by a series of works on paper, contributing to the layering of visual tropes, originating from a lexicon of figurative imagery that make up an indoor pleasure garden. This imagery of abundance and power speaks to the traditions of the Baroque and specifically to the site’s original designer, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and his use of theatricality.

The new body of work conceived by Luke Burton expands on the theme in the artist’s practice of the ambivalent relationship between decoration and contemporary art and culture. The installation of screens explores questions around the impossibility of style, the elasticity of taste and ambiguity of male identity. In particular the slippery question of mannerism within painting and its reliance on a received set of stylistic conventions. The screens also probe how historical and classical visual tropes persist over vast periods of time, suggesting an established symbolic order whilst remaining almost-empty signifiers.