Brendan Burns b. 1963

BRENDAN BURNS

(b. 1966

Brendan Burns came to New Zealand from Wales on 11 February 2020.  His residency at Earthskin, Piha, was arranged for nine weeks, to conclude with an exhibition at ARTIS on 7 April.  Due to COVID-19, Burns returned to Wales just prior to the New Zealand lockdown on 20 March 2020. His time here was limited to 5 weeks, however on his return to Wales, his work continued to be deeply influenced by his time in New Zealand.

“I have been awe struck with the colours oozing from the geothermal areas of Orakei Korako, which are truly dynamic, but equally drawn to the ‘biscuit’ or baked sand patterns on Piha beach. Colour and colour combinations in particular have excited my palette and have given me licence to experiment with ‘non signature’ rhythms and juxtapositions. Being here has also accentuated my interest in scale, the room between the monumental and minute, the sublime landscape and horizon, and the humble markings made by crustaceans in the sand.”  Burns 2021

Brendan Burns currently lives and works in Cardiff, United Kingdom.  He studied Fine Art at Cardiff College of (1981-1985) and undertook a postgraduate degree in painting at The Slade School of Art, University College London (1985-1987).

Burns is drawn to the details and avoids the horizon – he avoids the picturesque and celebrates the beauty in the macrocosm. His love of nature’s secrets, combined with his love of paint,  come together in his studio to celebrate art. Burns is deeply concerned with the spiritual in nature, with notions of time and with the act of painting as a meditative process.  

“My work is not abstract in the formal sense, but it has enjoyed the relationship with ambiguity; it

is concerned with inner emotion and the sensed experience of the viewer; it is about the

contemplative and experience of self-reflection. All my work has endeavoured to present the clarity,

yet simultaneous abstraction of a ‘peripheral’ experience: the afterimage burnt onto the retina,

something which is both precise yet ambiguous, fixed yet transitory, permanent yet ephemeral.

The work allows for the personal, philosophical and the emotive, as well as the sense of journey and time. I aspire tocelebrate nature’s ability to seep absorbed light, almost as liquid colour when dusk sets.”

Burns' work is held in numerous private and public collections including The National Museum and  Galleries of Wales, The Derek Williams Trust, The Contemporary Art Society of Wales, A Fundacion Casa Museo 'A Solaina' de Pilono, Spain and Contemporary Art Society of Britain (Tom Bendhem Bequest), Austria, Australia, China, Denmark, Dubai, Holland, Hong Kong, Jordan, Kuwait, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, USA and The United Arab Emirates.

An exhibition by Burns, ‘Aotearoa- A Brighter Light’, was held in ARTIS during 2021 and he continues to be represented by ARTIS Gallery.

Burns is also represented by Caldwell Snyder, California and Osborne Samuel Gallery, London.