Tom Burtonwood Variety Show April 13 - May 10, 2024
Tom Burtonwood
Variety Show
April 13 - May 10, 2024
The arc of this project began in 1999 with the invention of an unfolding box sculpture that opens to reveal a pyramid at its center and unfurling modules like the petals of a flower. At the time Burtonwood was experiencing the internet for the first time and situating art works within networks and systems thinking. The sculpture was conceived as a metaphor for the ways information was opening up, being transmitted, collected, and linked to. He wanted to make something modular that could be mailed to and from places of exhibition and “installed” simply by unfolding it as one might pitch a tent. In this sense, he sought to democratize art by making it something that could be exhibited anywhere and not just in gallery or museum spaces.
Variety Show is the current installment of this project. The exhibition features four different approaches to the central theme of the unfolding box motif: drawing, painting, sculpture, and animation. Through these four pathways, Burtonwood has produced a broad lexicon of images, forms, and gestures that hide and seek figure, ground, surface, pattern, presence, and play. Movement, whether implied or enacted, is central to Burtonwood’s project. It is suggested in the many drawings exhibited in the space and demonstrated in a short looping animation where two of the unfolding boxes are mirrored and choreographed together. Completing the exhibition is a full-size version of the unfolding cube made from painted cardboard and linen tape. Visitors to the exhibition will be encouraged to interact with the sculpture and help to enact its kinetic potential.
Tom Burtonwood (b. United Kingdom) is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist, curator, and educator, and Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Through sculpture, drawing, and video, Burtonwood explores patterns, systems, and mechanisms.vHe/they hold an MFA from Southern Illinois University (USA) and a BA from Loughborough College of Art (UK).
Recent venues presenting Burtonwood's work include MOM Art Space, Hamburg, Germany; MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Center, Helsinki, Finland; Material, Chicago; The Donut Shop, Chicago; Bert Green Fine Art, Chicago; DesignLab Gallery, Pasadena, CA; Dock 6, Chicago, IL; Monaco, St. Louis, MO; Platform, Evanston; Riverside Art Center, Riverside, IL; CICA Museum Gyeonggi-do, Korea; DEMO Project, Springfield, IL; Terrain Biennial 2017, Oak Park, IL.
Burtonwood is co-founder of Chicago-based creative studio, Happy Returns and a member of the international art collective videokaffe. Along with these collectives, he/they are a board member and co-organizer of Terrain Exhibitions. This Oak Park-based not-for-profit arts organization makes private space public through sculpture, installation, performance, and interventions. Apart from Terrain, he/they have curated over twenty exhibitions of contemporary art, working with Chicago-based artist-run galleries GARDENfresh (2002 - 2009) and What It Is (2010 - 2015).