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A solo exhibition by David Burke, sculptures by Luke Heimbigner
OPENING RECEPTION: September 1, during First Friday 6–9PM
We are excited to open our fall season with a solo show for David Burke. Burke's recent work coalesces his ongoing concerns in the context of a new Administration. The result is an astonishing array of emotional responses to environmental protection deregulation, expressed in immersive abstractions that evoke the natural world, and feelings of contemplation regarding our relationship to it.
My interests in science, ecology, water conservation and climate change are at the forefront of my recent paintings . . . Pools of ink recede like oil-saturated waters at low tide while headframes emerge from a tangled field of structures, gears and wires. In some works the term mining is used literally while in others it is a metaphor for how we navigate and consume information today in an attempt to understand what issues matter to us most. The work becomes a confluence of environmental and social anxieties that pays tribute to the resilience of the natural world while acknowledging that our compulsion to expand is eroding the fragile ecological framework of our planet. - David Burke, exhibition statement
David Burke is an Oakland based painter and educator whose work has been exhibited his work both nationally and internationally. He is the art director for the Super Heroes Mural Project in West Oakland and co-founded the Autobody Bridge Program for emerging Bay Area artists. Most recently he was selected by Zero1 to be a part of the flagship American Arts Incubator program that sends artists abroad to collaborate with youth and underserved populations on community-based new media and mural art projects that bolster local economies, influence public policy, and further social innovation.
Luke Heimbigner makes cast metal sculptures using the forms of forgotten and discarded items. He was born in 1982 in Bozeman, Montana. His grandfather may have hoped to make an engineer of young Luke by bringing him old lawnmower engines to take apart and rebuild; instead, it was Luke’s artistic imagination that was sparked by the functional beauty of those machines. In 2006 he graduated from the University of Montana at Missoula with a BFA in sculpture and a minor in media arts. In 2007 he moved to Oakland, having accepted a position as metal chaser at Artworks Foundry in Berkeley. He is also a captain of the foundry pour crew, helps with mold making, and assists in the installation of finished sculptures. At Artworks he met the late Steven De Staebler and worked closely with him as an assistant in the creation of the bronze sculpture for which De Staebler is internationally famous. Alongside De Staebler, Heimbigner numbers Richard Serra and Martin Puryear among the sculptors whose work he admires.
Vessel Gallery
