STEVE BURDEN
A SENSE OF PLACE
27th November - 12th December 2021
Electro Studios Project Space
St Leonards on Sea
Responding to the title, A Sense of Place, this mixed group show explores themes of family, heritage, migration, displacement, identity, nostalgia, memory and loss through paintings, drawings, sculpture, installation and mixed media.
I am very much interested in the notion of a city and how it affects our relationships with each other and the environment in which we live. I want my work to have a visceral quality and, rather than render an image in paint, my process is an exploration in letting the medium take over and create works that I would find very difficult to recreate.
Steve Burden works mostly in painting to investigate dystopian themes and ideas associated with British housing estates, partly inspired by his personal experience growing up on the Pepys (a brutalist high-rise council estate in Deptford, south London). He is driven to understand what it means to be working-class in today’s society and the urban context in which he grew up which continues to influence his visual aesthetic.
His current practice explores the under-representation of those from lower socio-economic backgrounds in the arts and education. Steve graduated from Goldsmiths College, London with First Class Honours and Bath Spa University with a Masters Degree in Fine Art (distinction).
Read more about A Sense of Place here
EXHIBITION ARTWORKS
EDDYSTONE ENTRANCES
NOTES ON PAINTINGS, TRIPTYCH 2021
The Pepys estate was officially opened on 13th July 1966 by Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma KG. Construction began in 1966 with the new Greater London Council in charge and was completed in 1973. Three signature 24 storey towers dominate the estate, Eddystone (the one I lived in), Aragon and Daubeney. I wanted to make an abstracted painting of each. Each replica was then clad in perspex to reflect the cladding of the estate in the 1990s - a cosmetic effort to regenerate the estate and paper over the cracks. I wanted to change the aesthetic of the paintings so that from afar they look like contemporary, high gloss blocks of colour, their content revealed on closer inspection.
The Pepys estate was officially opened on 13th July 1966 by Admiral of the Fleet, the Earl Mountbatten of Burma KG. Construction began in 1966 with the new Greater London Council in charge and was completed in 1973. Three signature 24 storey towers dominate the estate, Eddystone (the one I lived in), Aragon and Daubeney. I wanted to make an abstracted painting of each. Each replica was then clad in perspex to reflect the cladding of the estate in the 1990s - a cosmetic effort to regenerate the estate and paper over the cracks. I wanted to change the aesthetic of the paintings so that from afar they look like contemporary, high gloss blocks of colour, their content revealed on closer inspection.
Read more about the artist here