Rosemary Burn

Artist Statement

Since completing an MA in sculpture at Chelsea School of Art in 1984, I have spent most of the intervening years as a classical pianist and teacher. My means of expression has changed over time. At Chelsea I was working as a conceptual sculptor, creating objects with a mechanised component, for example a bicycle with a hidden motor in the back wheel, turning it endlessly to cause the illusion of a never ending moment in time shortly after an accident. Another piece I created was a telephone receiver (this was before mobile devices) with the wire cut, lying on the ground making the sound of ‘heavy breathing’. Another was a remote controlled leg of lamb... Recently I have turned to painting portraits, landscapes and still life. I find portrait painting an intriguing subject which offers a glimpse into the lives of others. It also explores themes such as identity, culture, power, and ultimately today's world through human beings, its central aspect. Artists whose work I admire include Alice Neel, whose portraits combine keen character observation with the fine line which can divide the abstract from the representational, the finished from the unfinished. Another artist whose work I admire is Euan Uglow, whose methodical precision lends an air of controlled passion, to use his own description. As these, and many other artists have done, I am seeking to form a visual language derived from the action of painting, and the discovery of its unexpected possibilities. To some extent I am working along the same lines as the so called Euston Road school, founded by William Coldstream, and followed by artists such as Victor Pasmore, Graham Bell and Lawrence Gowing. These artists rejected abstraction, advocating instead an 'objective abstraction', a type of realism which was more accessible to the public gaze. It seems to me that all artists are realists in some sense, presenting a reality according to them, whether it is abstract or figurative, or a blurring of the two. As my painting develops, especially my landscapes, I find I am becoming increasingly loose and gestural, in order to convey the energy and essence of what I see before me, and an inner emotional response.