Ian Burns

"
For most of my creative life, my relationship to painting has always unfolded in fits and starts. Like so many artists throughout the US, the reality of bills and work has acted as an interloper to my creative efforts. Having worked as a construction worker and then as a high school math teacher, my painting practice has often found itself simmering at very low heat on a back burner. Over the last four decades, I have experimented with color theory, cubism, geometric abstraction, and conceptual printmaking. Ten years ago, I returned to both oil paint as a medium and turned toward concerns of creating space in representational landscapes. Working in plein air, I was introduced to a number of difficulties associated with working in natural light. While outdoors, in the intensity of sunlight my palette was wondrously bright and saturated. Then when I would bring the work indoors, the paintings would appear drab and dark. In response, I learned to compensate for both value and saturation. 

In 2023, I came across several pointillist paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art. In examining these works, I discovered that the optical mixing of primary colors achieved in pointillism directly resolves the issue of color in natural light appearing overly saturated. This was a byproduct of the technique of placing dots of color next to one another. In pointillism, a color’s hue is changed only by adding white. Unlike traditional methods of mixing compliments, pointillism creates black, grays and desaturated colors through proximity. The observed color is only truly achieved in the act of perception and in the viewer's mind. 

In my most recent paintings, I have attempted to integrate my love of baroque portraiture and its chiaroscuro methods to render form, and the color theory of pointillism."