Blog

Art Project
Greg

Color Field Painting

What is Color Field Painting? Color Field painting, a derivative of Abstract Expressionism, is essentially the attention to color in abstraction as opposed to form or structure. The early Color Field painters, such as Mark Rothko, Clement Greenberg, and Clyfford Still created large works such that when one was standing up close one was absorbed in the color. Color Field has developed since then with various tendencies moving both further from shape and form and closer to it. What I’m Doing I’m developing color field in a way that combats the color against the figure. I’ll be doing so this

Read More »
Art Project
Greg

Artist Residency at The Quarry – Contemporary Arts International

Great news. I’ve been accepted to attend a two-month artist residency at The Quarry at Contemporary Arts International in Acton, MA for 2018. My tenure there will be split between one month in the spring (May-June) and another in the fall (Oct-Nov) with the exhibit being in Nov. My plan is to create ten large pieces similar to the one to the left. Except that I won’t be doing silhouettes. Instead, I’ll be painting colored squares or stripes as a background and putting the minimalist charcoal drawings seen below on top of the colors. I may keep the minimalist drawings

Read More »
Incomplete is a minimalist, oil, abstract painting depicting the process of Scottish Independence using blue on a white canvas.
Contemporary Art
Greg

Imago Mundi – Scotland Collection

Incomplete – oil on canvas – 2017 – by Greg Mason Burns. Imago Mundi Project – Scotland Collection I noted late in 2017 that the Luciano Benetton Imago Mundi project asked me to participate in it’s collection. A collection of artworks from every single nation on earth, each country has it’s own collection. Some countries, such as the UK, have separate pages for the nations that exist within the UK. I am participating in the Scotland Collection. Each artist receives a canvas of the same size, and that’s to make it easier to store and exhibit all the different artworks. The

Read More »
Art
Greg

Fiscal Sponsorship for Artists

Why do we have fiscal sponsorship for artists? Anyone remember Piss Christ by Andres Serrano? Yeah, that one – the one where Serrano received about $20,000 in tax-payer money to create art. In my mind, nothing wrong with that – he’s an artist who had a provocative photograph, and that’s pretty normal in contemporary art – but there were several conservative politicians who did take exception and, as luck would have it, these politicians managed to change how the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) would distribute tax dollars to artists. Before this controversy, the NEA offered grants to individual artists.

Read More »
Drawing
Greg

Abstract Minimalist Portraits

I haven’t done a Kickstarter proejct for a while, mostly because I’m just not the kind of artist who needs a lot of “one-off” projects fulfilled. My most pressing need at the moment is studio space, and I’ve been working on my Patreon page to get me to a point where I can have on-gong long-term relationships that help me create art on a regular basis. However, when I saw that Kickstarter was going to be doing a Commissions project, I knew that this type of project would work well for me on that platform. The project is specifically about

Read More »
art you can imagine
Exhibit
Greg

Southwest Harbor Exhibit Opening Night

About that Southwest Harbor exhibit opening night! What a week it’s been. Being busy isn’t even the word. Despite all the happenings leading up to opening night, the hanging, reception, and artist talk at the Southwest Harbor Public Library (Abstract Ideas, Art You Can Imagine) all went off without a hitch. I had about 10 people come, with about five coming early expecting the talk to begin at 5:30 instead of at 7:00. That’s my fault, as I wasn’t clear about the talk’s time. Still, the exhibit looks good. Twenty-seven pieces hanging throughout. I’m pretty happy with that, and how

Read More »