Artist Statement for the show at Soft Machine Gallery

The idea of belief is messy. There is a driving force behind belief, but it’s a topic that should be met with irony and postmodern distancing, right?

Getting your butt into the studio everyday (or close to it), has to be underneath the umbrella of belief. It’s a belief that painting can still do something. It has a higher purpose, a loftier goal, a heartbeat that can still move you - me.

This is not to say that it (painting) has to be overly romantic, sentimental, or beautiful. It should be able to be quotidian and heavenforbid, ugly. It seems to me that abstraction specifically is a ripe breeding ground for feelings/moods/emotions that are uncomfortable...maybe.

I think poetry is kind of like abstraction. You read and wonder, “what the hell is this supposed to mean?”. Poetry is never an easy invitation to understanding, it’s tricky to unpack. But when it does or when you do (unpack or open yourself) - watch out, it’s like a Bob Dylan song all poppy and awkward, then you hear what he’s sayin’ and the air gets pushed out of you.

Marriage is like abstraction, maybe this is a stretch, I better ask my wife......
You start down a road, fairly confident of where you’re collectively heading and then the space changes. The rooms change, the apartment changes, and the bed gets two impressions instead of one. Process - paint - dialog - shape.

God, I better believe because I’ve got a lot riding on this. You’re in this too - right? You’re in the stuff, all stuff, big and small stuff. You’re in the history of abstraction, is this a bad thing? Or is it just a thing? A real thing - real. Real things wrapped in letters, painted in belief.

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I sat down with artist Michael Burmeister one afternoon to discuss his recent work and some of the ideas behind it.
by Michael Burmeister

What do you think?
Hmmmm (thoughtful look comes over face).

Ok, what's up with Grisaille? Why this palette?
I don't know, I'm sick of color.

Nothing more?
No, maybe some of Modernism's ideas about black and white are of interest. Black - the mysterious and white - transcendence.

And gray?
Gray's difficult.

Why write SHAKE? What's SHAKE all about?
I'm not sure, I've always seen text with a figurative impulse. I look @ street signs, graffiti, and the removal of it as a visual field to play in.

That's all?
Maybe there's a bit of welcoming responses which could cause a loss of control. First you have to read the text and then you can feel the text. Mind - Body.

Ok, of what?
Anything, anything allowing possibility & openness; I mean many of the paintings are the size of the body. That reinforces a figurative content to the text
doesn't it?

Maybe, and what about the paint?
More of the same. Process, time, mental shifts, a felt skin.


Why repeat the text? Why keep writing "SHAKE"?
Sometimes it takes more than once to get the point across.

What point?
Maybe a list would help, everybody loves a list:
Dan Graham
Deerhoof
The Sublime
Possibility
Openness
Political Boredom
Structure
Sameness
The Shakers

Good list, I like it. Do these painting ever violently shake? Does the text ever come apart?
No, the structure gets flexible, but it never breaks apart. Mr. Fantastic never snaps.

Interesting. There has always been a touch of comic book in the blood. Anything more to add?
Of course.