Demetri Burke: at the end of the United States | In Collaboration with Jericho Brown

6 October - 2 December 2023
  • Johnson Lowe Gallery is pleased to present Demetri Burke: at the end of the United States as part of our current exhibition In Unity, as in Division.
     
    Demetri Burke's work utilizes mixed media to narrate tales of identity and culture. He primarily employs oil paint, charcoal, and found materials, crafting portraits within a Black southern landscape. His creations are marked by raw surfaces, expressive strokes, and an emphasis on texture and materiality, aiming to capture the everyday lived experiences of people and their psyche.
     
    at the end of the United States is accompanied by 'Shhh!', a poem by award-winning creative writer Jericho Brown.
  • Demetri Burke, Demetri, 2023 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Demetri Burke, aster, 2023 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Demetri Burke, nasturtium, 2023 (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    Demetri Burke
    Demetri, 2023
    Oil, paper, and copper leaf on panel
    48 inch diameter
  •
  • We are at the end of the United States,
    Said my father once we got to Daytona,
     
    My sad father who’d drive us to Daytona
    As if the sea’s aroma could drown secrets.
  • If the sea’s aroma could down our secrets,
    Paul Laurence Dunbar wouldn’t have known masks.
     
    I parse Dunbar’s Black decorum, painting masks
    On my memories, on old photographs.
     
    I don’t remember, but old photographs
    Show me in my grandmother’s wigs and earrings.
  • How is a boy in his grandmother’s earrings
    Different from a man smiling to show gold teeth?
     
    I am a man now.  My paintings shine like teeth
    Even at the end of the United States.
  • (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).
    (Larger version of this image opens in a popup).

  • Artist Statement

    “I use mixed media to express narratives of identity and culture on canvas. There is a concentration on the medium...
    “I use mixed media to express narratives of identity and culture on canvas. There is a concentration on the medium of oil paint within a range that includes charcoal, acrylic, printmaking, and collage. From there, I am depicting portraiture abstracted or dramatized in a Black southern landscape.
     
    Pulling from my own environment people, peers and their silhouettes are being reflected by my paint brush in various moods of triumph, wistfulness, and melancholy. Poses range focusing on their face at times and other times detailing their full body in stripped back interiors and exteriors. The paintings are usually done in an act that exposes my own hand as an artist. Surfaces appear raw, pencil marks are left, fingerprints create ghost impressions on the picture plane. The portraiture aspect is ever in transition teetering between fully rendered figures into bodies composed of more expressive strokes. There is a focus on texture and an attention to the material letting paint thinner and other solvents react within the depiction washing away and building up the subject simultaneously. Collage elements include found materials and images, discarded surfaces from previous artworks, and substances invoking themes of childhood, e.g. construction paper and glitter.
     
    This aspect adds into building up the surface creating dimension onto the 2-dimensional plane. The palette for my work has a muted spectrum of desaturated twilight colors, referencing my own familiar scenery, to blacks, whites, and sepia tones. Juxtaposition is all throughout my art practice and is vital to the construction of the image and the storytelling aspect of the work itself. The narratives I am interested in are chronicling the everyday lived experiences of people and developing snapshots of their psyche and enchantment at that moment. Characters painted are on a journey of contemplation and solitude. They take on aspects of desire and assertiveness up against worlds filled with uncertainty. They are posed as non-heroes, martyrs, wisemen, sirens, pallbearers, and lovers. They have an intimate relationship with magic and at the same time will say it's not real. They are my constant examination of my upbringing and current life.”
     
    Image courtesy William Twitty Photography.

  • About Demetri Burke

    Demetri Burke’s practice is diverse and fluid, never fully standing still for too long. Burke focuses intensely on the black...

    Demetri Burke’s practice is diverse and fluid, never fully standing still for too long. Burke focuses intensely on the black figure, building layer after layer to create murky images of nostalgia through a Southern lens. Each work is unified in its intimacy with the viewer: amalgamations of motifs and thoughts on the depiction of Blackness and the narratives that wrestle with trauma and affection pervade the composition.

    Utilizing oil paint, charcoal, and found images, Burke expresses compelling narratives of identity and culture on canvas. Abstraction, montage, and realistic rendering are key parts of his creative process, leaning on constant examination of cultural nuances that become visible in his findings. Burke obtained a BFA Degree in Studio Art from Georgia State University. In 2022, he debuted his first solo exhibition, And Then We Heard the Thunder.

  • About Jericho Brown

    Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is...

    Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His poems have appeared in The Bennington Review, Buzzfeed, Fence, jubilat, The New Republic, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, TIME magazine, and several volumes of The Best American Poetry. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.