Shawn Burkard

This exhibition focuses on a collection of evocative, atmospheric paintings that explore the boundaries of sight, texture, gravity, and the slow progression of time. Painted flat on the ground, the surface becomes a field where the works on view leverage a visceral tension between the artist’s hand and spontaneous fluid mechanics. Over extended periods, atomized mist from modified spray nozzles settles onto the surfaces as a heavy, falling vapor, creating a shifting sense of distance. In sharp contrast, thinned, layered oil paint spills, cascades, pools, and flows into unpredictable configurations across the flat substrates—guided by gravity, the fluid’s unique viscosity, and the temporal imperfections that freeze in place as the medium cures before the artwork is ever raised to the wall.

This selection of work does not document external realities; it encapsulates a visual history of its own creation. The paintings capture a visual friction in which the eye constantly searches for structure but instead finds a beautiful, complex state of flux.

By stripping away the literal, the work shifts how we look. It reminds us that when definition is completely removed, the most profound visual truths are found in the blur. From where we stand, the canvas speaks in a language entirely its own: a fluid, kinetic body language shaped by time.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Bruno David Gallery will publish a comprehensive catalogue of the artist’s work, featuring an in-depth exhibition history and bibliography.