Bob Burchman: New and Recent Paintings

 

October 30, 2021 - December 18, 2021

Artist’s reception: Saturday, October 30,

2:00 - 5:00 pm

Los Angeles artist Bob Burchman (b. 1946, New York, NY) makes medium size paintings (often 48 x 36,” though sometimes larger) in the style of the 1970’s American photorealists. And like his predecessors, Burchman favors images of transparency, translucency and reflectivity. But whereas the original photorealists would often focus on the department store display windows, diners, gas stations and car dealerships of the commercial American streetscape, Burchman refocuses the photorealist project onto the sites of high culture—art galleries, private collections and, most notably, the art museum. There he directs his camera phone at protective plexiglass frames and other reflective surfaces, capturing both the underlying image and surface reflections—other artworks, attentive viewers, gallery architecture, lighting devices—and then represents these interactions in the series of oil-on-canvas paintings which follow. And it is there too, inside the museum, where this artist’s work takes an unexpectedly personal turn as it becomes apparent that Burchman, a largely self-trained outsider, is motivated by a complex mixture of respect and resentment. “Pick me! Why aren’t I in the museum? Why them and not not me?," Burchman’s paintings seem to ask. Such raw emotions, which other more thoroughly trained and professionalized artists frequently share but are careful not to express, expose a sense of vulnerability that gives these already thoughtful and expertly realized artworks an additionally haunting power.


installation view no. 1

Untitled (Roy Lichtenstein with Andy Warhol, Marisol and

viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

72 x 48 inches

Untitled (Roy Lichtenstein with Andy Warhol and viewer

in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

48 x 36 inches


Untitled (Vija Celmins with viewers in reflection)

2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

48 x 36 inches


Untitled (Craig Kauffman with Dan Flavin in reflection),

2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

48 x 36 inches


installation view no. 2

installation view no. 3

Untitled (Piet Mondrian with unidentified artworks and

viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

48 x 36 inches


Untitled (Jasper Johns with Donald Judd and viewers

in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

72 x 48 inches


installation view no. 4

installation view no. 5

Untitled (Michael Asher with Dan Flavin in reflection),

2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas

36 x 48 inches


installation view no. 6

Untitled (Ed Ruscha with unidentified artworks and viewers

in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

36 x 48 inches


Untitled (Jasper John’s with unidentified artworks and

viewers in reflection), 2010 - 2020

Oil on canvas 

36 x 48 inches






 

Jackie Castillo: Gutting

Merwin Belin: Condensed