Full Circle
Round and Round She Goes
The Works of Rachael Burke
an Art Review
When one views Rachael Burke’s paintings this time of year one can’t help but think of a timeworn idiom: Timing is everything.
Currently at Glass Growers Gallery, Burke’s work seems to reflect nature’s bounty as it slowly transfers from winter’s slumber to Persephone’s awakening, with scenes of rushing waters, green fields and reinvigorating forests.
While Burke paints in an abstract manner, the titles of her acrylic creations and her own artistic style allow the viewer to comprehend what they’re viewing; too often abstract artists confound and turn off observers with arcane titles and confounding canvases. Not here.
Paintings such as Between the Trees display vertical slash lines of ochre, salmon, lime green and chocolate reflecting trees receiving different rays of the sun; a baby blue sky lords over earth-tone swatches that are the forest floor. The majority of Flowing are colors that match a rushing river perhaps in spring thaw: gray, white dashes that cover the surface showing the force and motion of the water over rocks, the green vibrant forest in the background, a silent bystander. Layered Fields is a titular scene of rich burnt-umber earth at the canvas bottom, transforming to a lime green above, to a mishmash of differing colors indicating land further off, becoming one with the light purple, blue-ish gray cloudscape at the creation’s apex.
My desire is to capture the raw energy of nature. I am most taken with the underlying structures that pulsate and palpitate with life as a network to all the elements throughout nature, said Burke in an artist’s statement posted on the Glass Growers Gallery website.
When I experience the woods at home, I feel the flux, changes, and aliveness all around me. The branches, stems, and roots are like arteries and veins pumping life through the environs, motivating me to share these sensations, she continued.
Welcome spring. Welcome gratifying art. Welcome Rachael Burke.
*** GG
Full Circle runs through June 12. For more information, visit glassgrowersgallery.com
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