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RON BURKHARDT

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A WORD ON LETTERSCAPES - ARTIST STATEMENT

Evolving out of early Mesopotamia cave paintings into the visual language of Notism, Burkhardt's new contemporary American LetterScapes art is comprised of his own abstract alphabet. The graphic geometric letter forms are precise and powerful with architectural imagery and rich color blocks that spell bold, well-known "word portraits".

FOUNDER OF THE NOTISM MOVEMENT

Notism art exalts the Beauty of Memory. It’s symbolic of primal loss; the fading reality of nature’s perfection. These hieroglyphic scribbles and scrawls manifest in a unique pictorial language that reflects urgent efforts to preserve our rapidly fleeting histories.

CREATOR OF LETTERSCAPES

These bold, hard-edged geometric color field paintings continue Ron’s lifelong fascination with words and letterforms. Evolving out of his Notism work with the hieroglyphic scribbles and scrawls documenting memory fragments, each unique set of color blocks spells a word, using his own abstract alphabet to create precise letters that reference cities, people, events and emotions.

His process is that of a draftsman, working with pencil and rulers to measure and design the words, then taping the lines to add several layers of acrylic or oil paint to each section. When this is finished, it takes weeks to perfect the tiny flaws left behind when the tape is removed. When finished, the art looks like it was created by a computer, rather than by the human hand of a fanatical perfectionist. 

ORIGINATOR OF EARTH ART

In a startling departure from his work with words and letters, Ron has literally broken new ground with his Earth Art series. Rooted in earth’s gritty reality, his primal new art form reveals intriguing depths and layers of textural substrates and residues forged from raw earth.

To create these large, organic paintings, he fuses acrylic, enamel, indigenous soil and water on to unprimed canvases, then bakes it all in the sun for weeks as nature creates its own startling design palettes, forming otherworldly shapes and powerful colors that exude a distinctive, weathered look. When finished, each is signed and dated on the back, identifying the region in which the art was originally formed.

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