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10 January 2015, 1:30 pm

Artist Talk: Tom Burrows

  • Tom Burrows

    Artist

    Tom Burrows (Canadian, b. 1940) has been a leading figure in Vancouver’s art scene since the 1960s. In addition to his photography and sculptural works with aluminum, fibreglass and porcelain, he is known for his research into squatting and homelessness. Burrows’ primary artistic focus since the late 1960s has been creating polymer cast panels, which he began experimenting with while attending Saint Martin’s School of Art in London (1967-69). Burrows returned to Vancouver where he became a founding faculty member at the University of British Columbia’s newly formed Bachelor of Fine Arts program, where he taught until 1974. This period coincides with him living at the Maplewood Mudflats in North Vancouver. In recent years, part of Burrows practice has been the creation of almost monochromatic panels that revive the modernist concern with the material nature of the object reduced to issues of surface, scale and the occupation of space. His work is represented by Bau-Xi Galleries, Toronto and Vancouver (since 1995) and Foster White Gallery, Seattle (since 2004); prior to that, his work was represented by the Isaacs Gallery, Toronto until it closed in the early 1990s. Burrows has had solo exhibitions in London, Rome, Tokyo, Berlin, New York and across Canada. His work is included in private, corporate and public collections in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The 2015 exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery was the first major survey of Burrows work.

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Vancouver/Hornby Island artist Tom Burrows discusses his exhibition Tom Burrows, which presents work from his early career to the present.

This exhibition is a timely refocusing of attention on an artist who has made an immense contribution to the development of art in Vancouver, not only as an artist but as an educator and activist as well—in 1975 he received a United Nations commission to document squatters communities in Europe, Africa and Asia, a work that is now in the Belkin’s collection. Burrows first rose to prominence in the late-1960s and was included in several exhibitions at the UBC Fine Arts Gallery, an institution that was seminal in encouraging Vancouver’s growing and now vibrant art community. Burrows’s work, which demonstrates an interest in process and new materials, has encompassed a number of disciplines including sculpture, early performance art, video, painting and iconic hand-built houses on the Maplewood Mudflats and Hornby Island. Currently most well known for his innovative monochromatic cast resin “paintings/sculptures” produced during the last forty-five years, this exhibition examines the full breadth of his career with works from the Belkin’s permanent collection and others borrowed from the artist, collectors and public institutions.

Visit Tom Burrow’s blog for more information about the artist. For more information about Tom Burrows’ 1975 research into squatting and homelessness, download his essays Dialogue on the Squatters’ Movement  and Composite Dialogue on Third World Housing.

  • Tom Burrows

    Artist

    Tom Burrows (Canadian, b. 1940) has been a leading figure in Vancouver’s art scene since the 1960s. In addition to his photography and sculptural works with aluminum, fibreglass and porcelain, he is known for his research into squatting and homelessness. Burrows’ primary artistic focus since the late 1960s has been creating polymer cast panels, which he began experimenting with while attending Saint Martin’s School of Art in London (1967-69). Burrows returned to Vancouver where he became a founding faculty member at the University of British Columbia’s newly formed Bachelor of Fine Arts program, where he taught until 1974. This period coincides with him living at the Maplewood Mudflats in North Vancouver. In recent years, part of Burrows practice has been the creation of almost monochromatic panels that revive the modernist concern with the material nature of the object reduced to issues of surface, scale and the occupation of space. His work is represented by Bau-Xi Galleries, Toronto and Vancouver (since 1995) and Foster White Gallery, Seattle (since 2004); prior to that, his work was represented by the Isaacs Gallery, Toronto until it closed in the early 1990s. Burrows has had solo exhibitions in London, Rome, Tokyo, Berlin, New York and across Canada. His work is included in private, corporate and public collections in Europe, Asia and the Americas. The 2015 exhibition at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery was the first major survey of Burrows work.

    Read More

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