We had the pleasure of recently visiting this year’s artist-in-residence at Eltham College, Luke Burton as he prepares for a solo exhibition at the Gerald Moore Gallery 18 April – 18 May 2024.
Burton has recently been working on a body of work that he will exhibit for his solo exhibition, which he has created using enamels embedded on to panels which will be displayed in a manner with reference to ethnographic museum displays, the panels will exist in their own worlds with their own internal logic. Burton has an ongoing interest in how symbolism operates across visual culture and questions the relationship between craft, ornament and fine art. He sees painting within an expanded field, specifically in his use of media such as folding screens, flower presses, or vitreous enamels. These contrasting modes also show Burton’s interest in the idea of scale in relation to painting: the scale of architecture, the human scale, and the scale of the miniature or handheld. How do these various scales create a physical and psychic space for intimacy, alienation, empathy or privilege? Recently, during a three-month residency at the British School at Rome, Burton’s research led him to explore the sticky concept of style and its relationship to ideas around language in painting.
He holds a BA in Painting from Chelsea College of Art and an MA in Sculpture from the Royal College of Art. He has exhibited widely including at ICA, London; Turner Contemporary, Margate, National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester; PADA, Lisbon; Kinokino Kunstall, Stavanger, Norway; Bosse and Baum Gallery, London; TJ Boulting Gallery, London; and Union Gallery, London.
Burton was Visiting Fellow and Artist-in-Resident at Girton College, Cambridge University in 2019-20. He received a Jerwood Visual Arts Bursary in 2017 and the Lewisham Art House Award in 2014. In 2023, he received the Abbey Fellowship in Painting at the British School at Rome.
Photos: All recent works from Burton’s studio.
