EFA STUDIO PROGRAM: Member Artists
M BURGESS
My pencil shaving sculpture (Top Left) results from months of applying an editor’s pencil to writings that surface at the end of my painting sessions. Light on the back studio wall (Top Middle) is coming from nine North-facing windows. Over those aluminum windows, I constructed a set of pine frames and placed red theatrical filters in some of them, so that red, blue and purple light travels throughout studio while i work. The shelves on the back wall are usually full of papers, which i am now in the process of editing. Each typewriter offers a unique voice. The red Olivetti Lettera is the voice of the earth. Next to it is the Smith Corona Galaxie 3000, which speaks from a non-photo blue photographer’s pencil-like voice and writes in BULLETIN font. Next to it is the Royal typewriter, which speaks from the past. The seafoam green Hermes is a messenger voice, which usually explains happenings. A fifth typewriter, the Torpedo Bluebird, is at home in my bedroom, documenting dreams. It writes from a voice with a frequency like the color of lapis. When i hand- write, i use a color-coding system and when i type, each typewriter’s voice can be identified by its font. The metal sculpture on the right has many star-holes in it and a centrally located portal, which i refer to as the glory hole. When this sculpture is leaned against the white wall, many images of the studio’s 9-window cluster facing it are projected from each hole (Middle Image).
m is the recipient of numerous grants (including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, NYFA, and The Jerome Foundation) with residencies in the United States (MacDowell, MassMoCa, VCCA) and abroad. THEY/THEm has had solo exhibitions in Chelsea and Brooklyn, Texas, and Vietnam and has participated in group exhibitions locally and internationally. Since June 2016, THEm has taken a bold turn in their practice, leaving the traditional frameworks and social discourses of their discipline for a solitary expedition into the source of creative flow, by accessing the pre-verbal or pre-cognitive mind-body state and documenting it.
