Sara Nightingale Gallery is pleased to present, A Picture's Half Silence, a solo exhibition of new works by Perry Burns, opening Saturday, June 30 from 6 - 8 p.m
A
well known abstract painter, Burns has for years been making oil paintings
imbued with Islamic motifs and patterns. Spirituality, both personal and
collective, has always played an important role in his work. Since 9/11,
however, while continuing to produce his velvety, layered abstractions, Burns
has been exploring political issues surrounding Islamic cultures, particularly
events and imagery that have been filtered and distorted by the media, as well
as by our personal perspectives and prejudices.
The
works are primarily about crowds and often depict either scenes of uprisings or
people engaged in prayer. Technology and it's ability to function as both a
tool of peace -The Arab Spring and Twitter, for example- and of war, is evoked
in the works by colorful square pixels that often conceal large sections of the
source photographs in these mixed media works. Drawing from licensed imagery
that he finds online, as well as from his own photographs, Burns has developed
an elaborate process of transferring photographic images to large scale
canvasses. Even in the work itself, technology plays a central role.
In Jali,
a square painting in which a photograph of a group of Islamic women is nearly
indiscernible due to the application of a black pixelated pattern such as one
that might be found in a QR Code, the title refers to a term for a perforated
stone or latticed screen common in Islamic architecture. The pattern obstructs
an image of Pakistani women wearing burqas and thus reveals multiple layers of
separation between the viewer (us) and the subjects of the painting
(them).
In his Satellite images,
Burns employs military aerial photos taken from space of "target"
locations in Pakistan and Afghanistan. While the imagery suggests future
strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles, Burns finds beauty in these contemporary
"pre-strike" landscapes and embellishes them with swatches of patterned
color.
The
exhibition will run through July 30. For more information and images
contact Sara Nightingale, 631-793-2256 or reply to this email.
Image: Perry Burns, Revolution #11, mixed media on canvas, 60" x 80", 2012
Image: Perry Burns, Revolution #11, mixed media on canvas, 60" x 80", 2012
