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Artist Exhibitions:
The Wirksworth Arts Festival,
Derbyshire, UK
Sept 2005
The Sir John Borlase-Warren,
Nottingham, UK
Selected work shown throughout
2005
The City Gallery, Leicester,
UK
Nov – Jan 2004
Fifteenth Open Exhibition
Nottingham Castle Exhibition,
Nottingham, UK
Nov – Dec 2003
Annual Open Art Exhibition
Christie’s, London, UK
March 2002
Art ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
Coming Soon!
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Artist Reviews:
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Collections:
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Commissions:
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Artist Statement for Madeleine Burt
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My work is to do with the relationships we keep and the relationships we break.
There is a common misconception that lobsters pair for life, and so have become symbolic of a committed, life-long relationship with an ideal partner. The reality that they don’t has meant that their symbolism can be used to signify human relationships: the distress of losing relationships; of being caught within them; the misplaced ambitions or perceptions we have of others; the unspoken trust we place with others, that may or may not be honoured.
Throughout the work there are various themes that continue. The idea of wrapping the lobster suggests mummification. Preservation, ceremony and ritual are implicit, as are suffocation, restriction and the history of binding.
The image of the scarab for the Ancient Egyptians signified renewal, resurrection and transformation. Scarab amulets were placed over the heart of the mummified dead to keep it from confessing the sins during its interrogation in the Weighing of the Heart ceremony at Judgement Day. The heart itself, rather than the brain, was considered to be the intelligent organ.
Barn owls eat their prey whole, digest what goodness they can, and cough up the matter they can’t break down. Fur, teeth, claws and bones are regurgitated as owl pellets. Unlike lobsters, they do pair for life, and despite the owl pellets lacking the elegance of the birds themselves, they somehow suggest brutal honesty.
These themes are brought together in my most recent work, to question approaches to inter-personal and well as intra-personal relationships. What keeps people together; what drives them apart? The power of the possibility of rejection is key to us all and can make us too dependent on each other, or purposefully isolated.
In our society do we value cognitive intelligence more highly than emotional intelligence?
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