Bridgette Mayer Gallery
t: 215-413-8893 f: 215-413-2283
e: bmayer@bridgettemayergallery.com
Bridgette Mayer Gallery announces its ninth exhibition of 2012:
A solo show by artist Charles Burwell
"Everything is a Series of Adjustments" will be on view from November 6 – 30, 2012, with an opening reception Friday, November 9, 6:00 – 8:30pm.
Bridgette Mayer Gallery will present its third solo exhibition by artist and Pew Fellow, Charles Burwell. Everything is a Series of Adjustments will be on view from November 6 - 30, 2012, with an opening reception on Friday, November 9th, from 6:00 - 8:30 pm. The exhibition will feature approximately fifteen new paintings. Also on view in the Vault Room,a series of mixed-media wall pieces by Colombian artist Santiago Pineda.
As the title of the show suggests, each painting is a carefully considered series of choices as well as ongoing adjustments to those choices. Built from complex systems of layering that rely on the overlap of solid and patterned shapes with a specific structure of carefully dripped lines, Charles Burwell's compositions are immensely labor-intensive. His work explores the relationship between geometric structure and the organic flow of nature by combining forms derived from biology, archaeology and natural history with other graphic, computer-generated elements. This body of work introduces new complex grid patterns to the forms, and experiments with varying levels of density of his forms. The computer also allows the artist to work through numerous possibilities for each painting quickly, before he ultimately decides what to put down in paint. The artist states: "I see my work as a continual evolution from work done twenty years ago when biology, science and the natural world were major influences to the present where the desire to integrate the organic or nature with the mechanical is important. The use of the computer is part of that evolutionary process."
Charles Burwell received his BFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art (Philadelphia, PA) in 1977, and his MFA from Yale University School of Art (New Haven, CT) in 1979. He has participated in many exhibitions, including solo shows at Bridgette Mayer Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), the Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts (Wilmington, DE), Dartmouth College (Hanover, NH), the University of Delaware (Newark, DE), and Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, PA). He has taught at Tyler School of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI), and Dartmouth College. Burwell's work is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (Philadelphia, PA), the Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington, DE), the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA), and The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York, NY). He has been the recipient of two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships, a United States Information Agency grant for Middle East travel, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant, two Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Awards, and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts.