dburge3@gmail.com

I am interested in the romance that we attach to natural space, an illusion onto which we project our desires and fears. Imagery of the tropical is usually glamorous, a sort of air-brushed cultural fantasy of profusion and sensuality. I like to expose its more corporeal reality, depicting vernacular tropical living spaces that one finds a few blocks back from the beachfront.

These images are collaged from personal travel photos, found photos, and art-historical references. The quilts combine painted fabric with densely embroidered elements, aiming to keep the eye on the illusory surface of the work. The paintings on paper depict ephemerality- momentary phenomena of light, and loose arrangements of elements. Painterly marks disturb the image, reminding the viewer of the flat surface. The clay work arose spontaneously this summer, when I touched clay for the first time, enacting 3d versions of my sketches.

By creating spaces that look back at the viewer in this way, I hope to challenge the motivations behind the desiring gaze, with a wink towards surface beauty and spatial play.

Denise Burge received her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1991, and is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Cincinnati.

She has received multiple Ohio Arts Council Awards for Individual Artists and has carried out residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito California, and the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans. In 2004 she was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Visual Art. She also completed a residency in 2024 at the Studios of Key West.

LINKTREE to me and my other projects:

instagram for this work: @deniseburgeart

Maidens of the Cosmic Body Running (video and installation)

Not From Here, a graphic novel about Lafcadio Hearn, made in collaboration with Rob Jefferson and Evan Carroll

instagram for this project: @notfromherebook

collaboration with Abby Cornelius (video and sculpture)