Jesse Burke
Wild & Precious
The color photographs in Wild & Precious capture the unique relationship between father and daughter. Jesse Burke and his daughter, Clover, have taken multiple four - five day long trips into nature exploring state parks, forests, beaches, and rivers. They camped, hiked, swam, and just hung out together. Away from her home in the suburbs, Clover roams freely with her father – free to be both Wild & Precious. One minute exploring in a tidal pool…the next peacefully asleep, she is always respected for her feelings and thoughts. Burke’s example is his only guidance…maintain a safe environment for self discovery. It is obvious that the bond strengthens and rewards both adult and child.
‘Wild & Precious’ brings together treasures from a series of road trips traveled with my daughter to explore the natural world. I use these adventures to encourage a connection between my child and nature and to give her an education that I consider essential—one that develops appreciation, respect, conservation, and self-confidence. On the road we talk about the vastness of nature and try to get more in touch with the earth. Together we document the routes we drive, the landscapes we discover, the creatures we encounter, even the roadside motels where we sleep. Wild & Precious reveals the fragile, complicated relationship that humans share with nature and attempts to strengthen those bonds.” -Jesse Burke
Jesse Burke divides his time between personal art projects and commissioned work. Burke’s work deals with themes related to vulnerability and identity, as well as human's complicated relationship with nature. Daylight Books published his monograph, Wild & Precious 2015. He received his MFA from Rhode Island School of Design, where he is a faculty member. His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad and is held in many private and public collections including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the North Carolina Museum of Art; and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum.
Audrey Goldstein
The Repair Reflex
We are pleased to be exhibiting Audrey Goldstein’s newest body of work, The Repair Reflex. Goldstein continues to explore the use of materials often redefining the viewers sensibility – what looks soft to the touch is often rigid and firm while what appears hard is often soft and yielding.
‘The Repair Reflex’ uses the Bernini ‘Apollo and Daphne’ as its starting point. Bernini's Daphne is depicted at her moment of greatest vulnerability; at the exact moment she looses her humanity. Her transformation into a laurel tree is a moment of both magic and horror. She is forced to surrender her capacity for empathy in order to maintain a severely compromised life. This heartbreaking vulnerability is intended to fail using the gesture of Daphne's transformation as my guide.
This process translated the frozen marble into a cycle of building and collapse in order to generate fragments from the ruins. Each fragile version was built at full scale using only soft materials that could not withstand temperature changes or gravitational forces. After several cycles I built a stable piece while integrating the fragments, in essence forming a sculptural collage. These fragments alter the profile of the underlying work just as change altered the destroyed versions. They bear the marks of ruin while reforming the whole. The incised lines in the work are used as reference to mechanical and digital printing but also serve to create a readable, more detailed surface. -Audrey Goldstein
Audrey Goldstein lives and works in the Boston area. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA. Her performance work was staged at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA and at the D.U.M.B.O. Arts Festival through the D.U.M.B.O. Art Center, Brooklyn, NY. She is a recipient of the Artist Resource Fund award from the Berkshire Taconic Trust, a Traveling Scholars award from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the International Association of Art Critics Emerging Artist Award.