JTBurke Exhibition Catalog 2010: Beautiful Again – Perpetuating the Myth of Paradise

Published by BurkeTriolo Studio EditionsSouth Pasadena, California USA©2010 BurkeTriolo LLC All rights reserved. All texts © respective authors. See colophon for additional credits.Printed in the United States of America. First Printing May 2010.ISBN 978-0-578-05702-6Library of Congress Control Number: 2010928241

Cover image: Beautiful Mask II (2009 – detail)

Introduction by

Peter Frank

Essay by

Simon Herbert

J.T.Burke

Beautiful AgainBeautiful Again

Perpeuaig Te Mh O Paradise

Images By

Bedazzled: The Digital Opulance Of J.T.Burke

It’s all done with mirrors. And jewelry. And the apparently innitemagic of Photoshop and its attendantalgorithms. But just because it’s so muchtrickery and nobody’s hands bleed inthe process of its fabrication (much lessformulation) doesn’t mean that it isn’thard to do, and perhaps even harder todesign, or even conceive. The allure of J.T. Burke’s confabulations is, nally,less in their craft than in the imageryitself; transcending all our knowledge – and skepticism – about the medium, theeffect of Burke’s pictures on our eyeballsand mindballs proves irresistible. The eyewants to be fooled; the mind enjoys therazzle-dazzle.One thing that powers Burke’svision, burning off any mundane traceand grabbing us so ferociously by theretinas, is his keen sense of measuredexcess. No question but that his is abaroque, if not rococo, sensibility, drunkon ligree and blithely arrogant in its“improved” recapitulations of naturalforms. Such pretensions seduce us,however, as much by letting us in onthe elaborate silliness as by trying topersuade us that such silliness could everexist in reality. (In this respect Burke israther like a kindly magician, tipping hishand ever so slightly, a prestidigitalatorreassuring us of his artice so that wedon’t come to fear the magic.) At thesame time, there is a modern, mechanicalaspect to Burke’s images; even as theysprout and curl and glisten with apparentabandon, they churn as rhythmically andrestlessly as a factory, their perpetualmotion nally proving relentless andgripping. You are at once seduced andoverwhelmed, sucked in and swallowedwhole.This is heady stuff, powered (asSimon Herbert’s study notes) by Burke’sCatholic background and appreciationfor a wide variety of art that precedes hisown. But it also acknowledges – indeed,embraces – the brain-wrenching, vacuum-abhorring condition of delusion. Whetherinduced by psychedelics or psychoses,hallucinatory perception tends to thiskind of apparition, endless and fabulous,inspiring awe in a frenzy of abstractedlust.But where true psychomaniasuffocates the soul, Burke seeks toliberate it, to spring it from its banalshell – or at least to suggest that suchliberation is within conception. If these spectacles of excess are, literally,incredible, they do not simply pointat higher levels of fantasy, but richlyillustrate them. They are each an escapefrom the quotidian, a quick (or, dependingon your meditative concentration, not-so-quick) jump down the rabbit hole intoanything-is-possible-hood. Burke invitesus to wander in Wonderland, to roam Oz,to join Lucy in the sky. Hell yeah, thisis escapism; but it is nely wrought andthickly wound enough to gratify all levelsof taste, a gourmet dessert.Technically Burke is a collagist,assembling so many discrete elementsinto images of things and spaces andcircumstances that do not exist in reality.But his cut-and-paste photographyengages the line and burr of drawingin its contours, painterly textures in itscompositions, and sculptural tactility inthe bristling, glistening cascade of richlyfestooned adornments. Burke’s visionhere, as cohesive as it is expansive, is alsoas sensate as it is sensational.J.T. Burke doesn’t “want it all.”His is a focused purview, narrowed toa notably limited range of fundaments – simplied, ironically enough, down topure sparkle. But he wants us to sense itall, to see the universe in so many grainsof sand – grains that have become gems.

–

Los Angeles, May 2010

_________________________

Peter Frank is art critic for the Hufngton Post and Adjunct Senior Curator at theRiverside Art Museum. He is former editorof THEmagazine Los Angeles and Visions artquarterly, former critic for the LA Weekly, theVillage Voice, and the SoHo Weekly News,has organized exhibitions throughout North America and Europe, and is the author of several books and monographs. Previous

:

Beautiful Island in the Moonlight

(2009 - Detail); Opposite

:

Beautiful Bee II

(2010)

by

Peter Frank