murphyamen

Erik Burke Lecture Review-

Traveling all over the world creating art sounds pretty awesome, and it is, according to Erik Burke. Best known as an American street artist, Burke explores the nooks and crannies of towns all over the world and then sets up his own temporary gallery for the public to enjoy. Burke is Reno native and is received well by the locals; people were genuinely excited to see him and hear about his travels, adventures and creations. Starting out using spray paint and public walls, Burke used graffiti as a building block to more thoughtful and narrative based creations. He will often engage and interact the people of the community where he is creating, making them apart of the creative process and finished product; he says it becomes their art too. Burke’s work has a fleeting feeling to it, as though it was created as fast as he could imagine it in his own mind and then he is off to another place, another image. Even though his art seems like a quick thought it still has the tendency to provoke deeper thought.

One highlight of Burke’s lecture that was particularly interesting was a story about a trip he took a few years back, where he and a couple other artists tracked through Europe via bicycles. He documented the whole trip with his video camera and sketchbook, his sketchbook drawings of all the places he slept along his trip was very interesting and well done. The whole reason for the trip was to install a few pieces in a European galley, a first for Burke at that time. As Burke recalls his adventure he lets everyone know that the best part of the trip was getting to the gallery, the process of getting to an end result. It is that mentality that seems to fuel Burke's work, the art is simply the end product of the process, and he is always chasing the process.