Ellen Burnett “Dream House, and other stories”

Ellen Burnett “Dream House, and other stories”

Viridian Artists, Inc.

This event has ended.

Viridian Artists presents “Dream House, and other stories,” an exhibition of assemblages & paintings by Ellen Burnett.

Ellen Burnett came to Viridian as a winner in the gallery’s international competition of 2017, juried by Susan Thompson, an assistant curator at the Guggenheim Museum. In 2014, the artist was also selected for the Director’s Choice exhibit, Viridian’s offshoot of the juried shows that gives exposure to even more outstanding artists. This will be the artist’s first solo exhibit at Viridian.

The exhibit title, “Dream House, and other stories” suggests that each piece in the show contains a narrative. The title piece, Dream House, is one of a series that happens in the small hours of the night—a time when demons clamor to be seen and nightmares occur to the wakeful. Out of these images, Burnett has created a narrative intentionally open to reinterpretation by the observer.

One can begin to get a sense of Burnett’s point of view from the nomenclature of the works, which trace hints of her ambiguous meanings. More than the suggestive abstract images themselves, titles such as “A January State of Mind,” “The City at 2am,” and “The Season of Letting Go” allude to a state of mind, a mental space.

Burnett’spractice involves finding whole objects, as well as fragments and bits of discarded things, that inspire her. She collects and saves these pieces of rusted and broken remembrances, often for years, until they find their place alongside other repurposed items evoking memory and moments past–at times also pointing to a future waiting to be written. However, her work involves more than assemblages of discarded-now-found treasures, for painting and drawing also are a critical part of the process she uses to suggest her narratives.

For Burnett, things have potential beyond their initial existence and original utility, possessing inherent energies waiting to be unlocked. This is a critical consideration in the twenty-first century when too much is being discarded, destroying our environment and the world we now know. Perhaps it will be artists like Ellen, “upcycling” the discards of civilization, who will point the way to solutions for the future. As the artist says about her working process:

“But observe:
details emerge and
perspective shifts.
These are compositions on the edge of the abstract,
where conversation can occur;
narrative works in which stories are about to unfold.”

We look forward to seeing you at Ellen Burnett’s exhibit “Dream House, and other stories.”

Media

• Sculpture
• Installation

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