Peter Burke | reCAST

Andipa Contemporary is delighted to announce reCAST, a new solo exhibition marking a pivotal transition in the working methods and materials of esteemed contemporary British sculptor Peter Burke. This selling exhibition, which juxtaposes Burke’s new ‘earthworks’ with his compelling and distinctive cast steel figures - already internationally collected and exhibited at institutions including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice - will be on show at Andipa Contemporary Gallery, London, from 15 September to 8 October 2011.

Standing outside his studio situated in the deep green of the English hills, the sculptor Peter Burke had an epiphany: why not create using the material most plentiful that exists: the earth beneath his feet.
Peter Burke has long been fascinated with the precision of mechanical processes, industrial casting and mass production. His background as an engineer for Rolls Royce has contributed to the technical brilliance of his works in steel, which have explored the effects of repetition and the disorientation created by the modern world’s seemingly endless creation of identical products. He has questioned the position of the individual in the mass of the contemporary world and the subtlety of the human form in the face of ubiquitous standardisation.

This exhibition showcases a new body of work for the sculptor. He has moved away from the workings of industry with its complex processes of production towards the simple act of digging and excavating the natural. This line of enquiry started in 2005 when he was awarded a residency on the Djerassi Artists Program in a remote location in the Californian hills. He was given an empty glass fronted studio with views over the deserted scrubland and 6 weeks to produce a body of work. He realised his most available materials were the body and the land, his subject the expanse of the landscape and man’s place within it. He created a series of cast earth feet, which he placed in a meandering line walking through the landscape. Left to be consumed by natural processes the earth forms sprouted grass and dissolved back into the land from which they were borrowed.

In the same way that many great artists including Richard Long have been fascinated with the earth, with walking and with the power of the earth, so Peter Burke has turned his eye and his mind to analysing the earth and our relationship to it. His approach is more scientific and less mystical than that of Long. He traversed the West Country noting the extraordinary range of colours from chalky white to russet oranges to fallow brown to burnt sienna. From these he formulated a stable bonding method allowing him to press forms into a mould. Unlike the production of his metal works, he has had to relinquish total control of the process and allow the earth to crack and let its own unique composition dictate the final form.

reCAST is the first time Peter Burke has shown his ‘earthworks,’ and the show is a prelude to the much-anticipated Bath Museum solo show: Earthworks, in December 2011. reCAST juxtaposes these life size earthy forms which confront the viewer on an equal scale with his detailed miniaturised steel casts of the human body that are trapped - on top of their high columns, shelves or empty steel frames suspended above the ground - unable to escape from our critical gaze. While the material of these bodies of work differ vastly, both are expertly harnessed to explore Peter Burke’s fascination with the expressive potential of the human form. Both explore man’s predisposition to recognise and read the human form with an intensity that accords to no other visual activity.