Alle Tode bin ich schon gestorben
-Hermann Hesse
-Hermann Hesse
Brian Burris has been painting for almost thirty years.
He is a primitive, in the sense that he is self-taught.
His degree is in Liberal Arts.
Originally, he more closely identified with the abstract
expressionists, with the emphasis on the 'automatic' or
subconscious act of painting, the accompanying
emotional intensity and the anti-figurative, sometimes
violent and grotesque aesthetic; sometimes violent
and grotesque life.
After a seven-year hiatus, Mr. Burris returned to
painting and segued into the more minimalist style
seen in color field painters like Clyfford Still, Rothko,
and Barnett Newman. Burris began to explore the
parallel themes of the spiritual, and the unconscious
mind, reflected in the painting process itself
progressing according to both the will of the
subconscious and the properties of paint and canvas,
letting the execution and the subject matter become
analogous to the unconscious psyche asserting and
expressing itself, where unconscious meets chance,
spirituality borders on psychology, and the
implications of archetypal awareness and gnostic
meaning surface through the medium.
The artist received some attention for his
non-traditional artist's statements, more confessionals
or 'manifestos'. Based in his background in behavioral
modification and studies in psychology (including that
of non-verbal communication), the effects of hue,
declination of line, image juxtaposition and
compartmentalization on specific areas of the brain, as
well as archetypal imagery, Burris explores the nature
of non-verbal communication of context and emotion
through color fields.
In late 2008, Mr. Burris published a collection of
works, Codex: Fragments & Schemata, a montage of
paintings juxtaposed with artist statements and
fragmented graphics. Since then, he's published four
more: Broken Catalogue, (text and images); Lovesong
for Canvas, fiction; Locus, poetry/prose; and
Lovenotes from Vacuum (fiction). All his written
works progressively explore the themes of gnosis
versus psychosis, paralleling the infinite to the divine.
He describes his style as a schizo-poetic montage of
prose and images as disinhibiting stimuli, with the
conceit of targeting the subconscious self by layering
key stimulus words within a linear formula, allowing
the message to bypass ordinary consciousness.
Mr. Burris admits to with parallels with Voegelin, the
Pistis Sophia and Philip K. Dick, as well as influences
diverse as Finnegan's Wake, Jerzy Kosinski, Gravity's
He is a primitive, in the sense that he is self-taught.
His degree is in Liberal Arts.
Originally, he more closely identified with the abstract
expressionists, with the emphasis on the 'automatic' or
subconscious act of painting, the accompanying
emotional intensity and the anti-figurative, sometimes
violent and grotesque aesthetic; sometimes violent
and grotesque life.
After a seven-year hiatus, Mr. Burris returned to
painting and segued into the more minimalist style
seen in color field painters like Clyfford Still, Rothko,
and Barnett Newman. Burris began to explore the
parallel themes of the spiritual, and the unconscious
mind, reflected in the painting process itself
progressing according to both the will of the
subconscious and the properties of paint and canvas,
letting the execution and the subject matter become
analogous to the unconscious psyche asserting and
expressing itself, where unconscious meets chance,
spirituality borders on psychology, and the
implications of archetypal awareness and gnostic
meaning surface through the medium.
The artist received some attention for his
non-traditional artist's statements, more confessionals
or 'manifestos'. Based in his background in behavioral
modification and studies in psychology (including that
of non-verbal communication), the effects of hue,
declination of line, image juxtaposition and
compartmentalization on specific areas of the brain, as
well as archetypal imagery, Burris explores the nature
of non-verbal communication of context and emotion
through color fields.
In late 2008, Mr. Burris published a collection of
works, Codex: Fragments & Schemata, a montage of
paintings juxtaposed with artist statements and
fragmented graphics. Since then, he's published four
more: Broken Catalogue, (text and images); Lovesong
for Canvas, fiction; Locus, poetry/prose; and
Lovenotes from Vacuum (fiction). All his written
works progressively explore the themes of gnosis
versus psychosis, paralleling the infinite to the divine.
He describes his style as a schizo-poetic montage of
prose and images as disinhibiting stimuli, with the
conceit of targeting the subconscious self by layering
key stimulus words within a linear formula, allowing
the message to bypass ordinary consciousness.
Mr. Burris admits to with parallels with Voegelin, the
Pistis Sophia and Philip K. Dick, as well as influences
diverse as Finnegan's Wake, Jerzy Kosinski, Gravity's
Rainbow and of course the Nag Hammadhi texts, the
Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Tao, as well as a
considerable influences from music and film;
all held up to a mirror darkly, of depth and archetypal
psychology. "They're about anguish and separation
from reality," he says candidly.
Like the Zen koan, or the moment of reflection in
which the memory does not come, or that which lures
by its absence… this montage evokes ‘the forms of an
idea of the thing and its aspects, and brings the viewer
to succumb to the illusion of the whole’ (to paraphrase
Jung).
The themes Burris explores in his paintings run the
same as his prose, from Gnosticism to quantum
physics, Freud, through Jung, to Hillman and into the
past; the shamanic; to where the metaphysical meets
the subconscious, and just when on the crest of
sudden revelation, the artist, Judas-like, disavows the
meaning and implications as mere fictions and device.
Brian Burris usually shows a half-dozen times a year.
He shows primarily through ArtsWorcester, as well as
in corporate and institutional settings. His works also
sell out of the retail venue The Futon Company (also
in Worcester) and he has shown in various venues
from Cambridge to Northampton.
After emerging eight years ago from his self-imposed
exile from painting, Mr. Burris's works have
consistently sold, with over sixty-five pieces sold to
date.
Worcester Magazine:
Man on Fire
by Erik Radvon
Man on Fire
by Erik Radvon
Links:
| Let the young rain of tears come. Let the calm hands of grief come. It's not all as evil as you think. -Rolf Jacobsen |
| About the Artist |
Worcester Magazine's
Seducing the Soul to Ecstasy:
Discourses in Desolation
by Paul Grignon
Seducing the Soul to Ecstasy:
Discourses in Desolation
by Paul Grignon
Worcester Telegram and Gazette:
'Broken' Unites Dual Lives.
by Nancy Sheehan
'Broken' Unites Dual Lives.
by Nancy Sheehan
Worcesterscene.com:
Intuitive "Broken."
by J Fatima Martins
Intuitive "Broken."
by J Fatima Martins
Worcester Magazine:
'Men are From Mars,'
The Paintings of Brian Burris and Daniel Ceglinski.
by Chet Williams
'Men are From Mars,'
The Paintings of Brian Burris and Daniel Ceglinski.
by Chet Williams