25 – 28 August 2022
Preview 25 August, 2 – 8pm
Bosse & Baum is pleased to present The Sun Writ Large, a solo installation encompassing a new series of paintings and vitreous enamel works. The exhibition continues Burton’s critical exploration of material and aesthetic culture through poignant iconography and painting as an expanded field.
The five oil and acrylic paintings each depict a Baroque fountain in a field at night. Their impossible plumes of water depict alternately comic and grave forms of communication and power – writing, doodles, telephone cords and judge’s wigs. The compositions are infused with an acute sense of stillness and silence, with a distant horizon line below a cloudy sky.
The vitreous enamel works across two walls expand on the conversation around objecthood and iconography in dialogue with the five paintings. The vitreous enamel works expand on the conversation around objecthood and iconography in dialogue with the paintings. These works reflect, visually and conceptually, the world inhabited by the fountains, but as if the paintings have been dispersed, fragmented and refracted through a glass prism. These objects recall the historical painting medium of the miniature as much as votive offerings and ancient artefacts. Burton started working with enamelling during a residency in Athens in 2019, during which he encountered the historical medium of Ex-Voto objects that use an ancient technique whereby powdered glass is fired at high temperatures in a kiln onto copper substrates. Their arrangement in the space suggests both an open system of interpretation but also one that allows for specific connections between individual works. Burton started his series of enamels during a residency in Athens in 2019, during which he encountered the historical medium of Ex-Voto objects that use an ancient technique whereby powdered glass is fired at high temperatures in a kiln onto copper substrates. Their arrangement in space suggests both an open system of interpretation but also one that allows for specific connections between individual works.
The enamel miniatures and fountains inhabit a world that feels familiar and recognisable at the same time as appearing artificial and constructed. Symbolic associations of power, grandeur and prosperity are undercut with an atmosphere of ambivalence and alienation within a magical and yet unsettling, solitary realm.
Luke Burton (b.1983, London) lives and works in London. He has an ongoing interest in how symbolism operates across decorative visual culture and questions the relationship between craft, ornament and fine art in relation to taste, objecthood and materiality within painting. In addition to more conventional modes of painting, Burton is also interested in seeing painting as an expanded field, specifically in his use of seemingly anachronistic media such as folding screens or vitreous enamels.
These contrasting modes also show Burton’s interest in the idea of scale in relation to painting: the scale of architecture, the human scale, and the scale of the miniature or handheld. How do these various scales create a physical and psychic space for intimacy, alienation, empathy or privilege.
Email info@bosseandbaum.com for artwork enquiries or invitations
