May 13th - July 8th, 2023 5419 Glissman Road On view Saturdays 12-6pm
I drove East chasing trains and hanging on to sobriety, and I landed in a gravel lot in an industrial area in Arkansas. I stayed parked there for two months, making work about horses and matches. Immediately outside the window of my RV were meeting halls, and beyond that was a train yard, and I began to paint horses on the freight trains while simultaneously making matchbook collages through which I could grow my pieces within a constrained living space.
The matchbook collections were obtained from strangers, and I began to make up narratives about the person behind each collection and the nightlife they lived. The matchbooks with only one singular match left in them were always curious to me and gave me anxiety—each book really only has 20 chances to accomplish something.
On a random Tuesday, my dog and I left Arkansas with the matchbook collages and we drove to Texas to visit a friend in a metal shop where I began making objects from steel, including horses, which mimicked the horses I had painted on the side of the steel trains. Each sheet of steel is cut freehand like a style of drawing, then painted with even less thought.
I take my dog on multiple walks daily—a guarantee that I give her—and while on our walks I impulsively collect trash and detritus whenever I feel an attraction to them. I take my objects and findings home and incessantly arrange, paint, attach, and reattach the objects until I find either a balance or a moment of acceptance with the finished object. Each found object sculpture holds a very specific geographical location, date, and time for me, though ultimately they are made in a mindless manner which gives them a voice of their own. I made these objects with the freedom of creativity, with the freedom that they would not necessarily be shown to the public.
Mick Burson (b. 1990) is a multimedia artist who combines painting, sculpture, print and installation to create playful abstract works. He has created public art murals all over the world including the United States, Portugal, England, Spain, and Israel. In 2018, Burson executed the largest mural in New Mexico to date on Keshet Dance Center. His work is in the permanent collections of the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, Facebook Private Collection, We-work Collection, City of Albuquerque Public Art Collection, Polsinelli Corporate Art Collection, and others. He is currently represented by Richard Levy Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
