 Time
Portraits by Rachael Burke
on display in the main floor gallery
from September 24 through November 7, 2004.
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Here for more photos
Painter Rachael Burke (formerly Rachael Harper) has been interested in the human
form as a subject for years. Her recent work focuses primarily on movement and
gesture. She states, “The unique movement of each individual reveals and
conceals something, exposing both public and privates sides. I enjoy seeing how
each person creates their own natural idiosyncratic rhythm.”
Burke sometimes poses her models in child-like ways, self-defacing their persona
and expressing what makes them basally human. Costumes are also sometimes employed
by Burke for this same effect. Carrying the gesture through the painting, she
layers sometimes several figures, creating an animation of movement. Choosing
colors for expression over description, Burke remarks, “I continue to be
interested in mixing the sensuous, fleshy nature of the human form with the formal,
sensuous nature of abstraction.”
Burke earned her BFA in painting from Western Kentucky University (1977) and
her MFA in painting from Miami University of Ohio (1983). Since 1990, she has
been
a Professor of Art at Edinboro University. Burke’s work has been the subject
of exhibitions at the Cummings Gallery of Mercyhurst College, Gallery 937 in
Pittsburgh, LOWE Gallery in Atlanta and more. Her work has appeared in numerous
juried exhibitions,
including the Butler Institute’s Annual Midyear, the Chautauqua National,
and several times, the Annual Spring Show, among others.
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