Curriculum vitae (pdf)

Kellyann Burns New York City 2007 running time 6:43 (quicktime 9mb)



My process is my subject. The harmonic balance of color, of light and form found in nature is constantly shifting, in flux, subordinated by nature's own process, its own need to reclaim, to transform.

I paint, I sand; I turn the canvas. I paint, I sand; I turn the canvas. I build with color and form, focusing on the conceptual elements of the painting process, not the decorative.

Artist’s Statement
As an artist I am drawn to the beauty of erosion: the physical deterioration and wearing away of forms over time through the action of nature’s hand. I mimic this beauty of erosion in my paintings, which are made up of as many as forty layers of pigment that I reveal by sanding, scraping, and bruising the painting’s surface in a manner that simulates both attrition and the passage of time.

As a painter my focus is process and color. I aim to achieve a visual dichotomy in the paintings by establishing paradoxes in their compositions and surfaces, and I aspire to achieve a physical and emotional quality that is both intuitive and formalistic. My surfaces reveal an obsession with perfection and imperfection and reference architecture or sculpture that has been flattened or compressed.

My approach to painting is personal and reflective. I paint my surroundings and use abstraction to compose my visual voice. I title my paintings by the date and time when they’re completed, alluding to the concept of documentation. The result is a private record, not unlike a journal. My intention is to suggest time’s perceived compression and expansion: how even though we live in the present, we are capable of reflecting upon the past and imaging the future. Everything in time is transient, seemingly elastic, and, potentially simultaneous.