JANE BURTON

Jane Burton, a San Francisco based artist, graduated from UC Davis in the late 70's with a BFA, studying under Wayne Thiebaud, Roy DeForest and Robert Arneson. She continued with graduate school and a career in Graphic Design. Some years later her passion for ceramics and sculpture was reignited, inspired by a trip to Abiquiu, New Mexico where Burton worked with Native American potters. Working as a potter for a short time, Jane's work grew larger and larger and quickly evolved into figurative sculpture. Four years later, she was offered her first solo show where she featured a two-story, twenty foot ceramic figure.

Jane Burton’s current body of sculptural work is a timeless examination of humankind through the female form. Through her gestural and towering totemic figures, we examine perceptions of who we are as individuals - how we present ourselves, how we appear, our constant internal monologue, our self-worth – our strength, perseverance, spirituality and aging. Her figures are public, yet private – strong yet vulnerable.

Many of Burton's works are scribed in her hand – personal thoughts and perceptions on who we are and how we become what we are. Trained as a painter, the surfaces into which she writes are organic and complex layers of analogous or complimentary glazes and oxides applied, fired, etched and refired.

Burton's sculptures can be found both nationally and internationally in corporate collections, galleries and private collections.

Artist Statements:

Sculptures - My work is an extension of my self-reflection, where I manifest my desire to evolve and “grow” on a conscious and spiritual level. I recognize and expose the many layers of nature, experience, history, space, the conscious and unconscious world spirituality. I divulge through my illegible writing that “our story” is only our perception. And, that our perception can change the story.

Paintings - My paintings, like my sculptures, work with layers, texture and mark-making. Consciously choosing abstract work for my painting, I wanted a departure from the figurative sculptural work; to go beyond the familiar.  The subject has changed, yet the emphasis on layers, color, and line, as well as conceptual issues of human impact, and perception have not.  

In physical terms, these paintings are examples of particles of pigment suspended, but undissolved in a fluid that has dried to a solid.  Bridging the physical and ethereal, the paintings are not unlike everything else we perceive: interpretations of the stories we tell and hear suspended in the vanishing moment.

The  large-scale abstract work celebrates chaos, the unexplained, and demonstrates our struggle for dominion over it. Each piece will evoke it's own emotion, but overall, I'd hope the initial impact would be one of discovery, fascination, empowerment, and revelation. But, it's the time after the initial impact that interests me the most. The subtle shift in light, in color, the quality of the line. The fingerprints. The discovery in the layers of underlining bits of color... marks from stories from the past that have been covered up and long forgotten. 

My sculptures and my paintings will always influence each other... it's all my art. I once had a professor that would tell me that each piece is pregnant with the next. That's how I feel about the two mediums. The process is different, the outcomes vary, but the birth comes from me.