Robert Burnier: Soon The Night

About

Soon the Night features five wall-mounted sculptures, through which the artist emphasizes a nonlinear and
unpredictable relationship between one plateau of transformation and another. For his exhibition, Burnier sculpts
the path of a visual landscape by bending, shaping and warping acrylic-painted aluminum, incorporating a
melange of opposing color fields inspired by ancient African, Mediterranean and Mesopotamian objects. For this
new body of work, Burnier also takes a cue from Marvin Gaye and his tracks “Flying High (In the Friendly Skies)”
and “Wholy Holy”, as signposts carried through and inside pain but not merely of it.
The shifting hues are subtly enhanced by light landing on the sculptures’ twisting forms and repeating folds. The
resulting contours and dimensions are reminiscent of contemporary haute couture, with each work’s subtle
intricacies becoming boundless and infinite as the viewer explores the sculpture from every angle. The material
naturally offers resistance when manipulated, forcing the artist to navigate unknown territory through each
object’s creation. The physical nature and preconfiguration of the materials become historical facts that Burnier
must wrestle with and instinctively combine, resulting in folded and compressed forms that retain a history of their
own becoming.
Burnier makes use of L. L. Zamenhof’s utopian language, Esperanto, when titling his works. Developed during the
late 19th Century, Esperanto was constructed as an international auxiliary language intended to promote a world
without war by building a neutral and egalitarian bridge for communication. Borrowing from existing linguistic
traditions, this organic approach is a powerful attempt at universality without erasure - a similar concept to
Burnier’s approach to creating his sculptural works. Much like Esperanto, by beginning with a set structure of
material, no blank slate is required, allowing Burnier to explore a communion of what is within and without. The
artist’s sculptures echo the philosophical and practical concerns of failed utopias and the impossibility of
communion with the absolute - apparitions that have and always will haunt society.
The two drawings featured in the exhibition, made during the pandemic lockdown in May 2020, display a
technique originated by the artist. Through invention and experimentation, Burnier developed a layered drawing
method using two of the most ancient types of paper, Japanese washi and vellum. Trial and error with different
types of pencils that could work on these delicate materials, and sometimes using watercolor on the vellum layer,
the artist’s unique approach allowed him to create optical color blending and light quality that can’t be achieved
with opaque sheets. To circumvent visual interruption and take advantage of light and geometry, Burnier created
his own way of attaching the layers together, avoiding the appearance of any mounting hinges, glues and
attachments through the translucent paper. This technique, coupled with his distinctive “glazing” process (an
approach akin to painting and evocative of a sculptor’s creative process) produces works that can be defined
more as phenomena than images.
Robert Burnier received an MFA in Painting and Drawing from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016
after having previously graduated with a BS in Computer Science from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in
1991. He has been a Departmental Specialist Technician for European Painting and Sculpture at The Art Institute
of Chicago since 2006 and serves as a board member for Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, Heaven
Gallery, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (where he was a founding member). He completed an artist residency at

Massey Klein 124 Forsyth St. New York, NY 10002 masseyklein.com

Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL in 2008 and has served as a guest lecturer at Emily Carr University
(Vancouver, BC), Columbia College (Chicago, IL), Harold Washington College (Chicago, IL) and College of
Dupage (Dupage County, IL), to name a few. The artist’s work and writing have appeared in numerous print and
online publications, including Hyperallergic, TimeOut Chicago, Chicago Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Blouin
ArtInfo, Huffington Post, Artnet, ArtSlant, San Francisco Arts Quarterly and Art Market Monitor, Bad at Sports
and Chicago Artist Writers. Burnier’s sculptures and drawings have been featured in exhibitions at commercial
galleries and art fairs in Chicago, New York, Denver, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Dallas, Miami, Milan, London and
Copenhagen. He has participated in both solo and group exhibitions at institutions such as Hyde Park Art Center
in Chicago (2020, 2014), the Ukrainian Museum of Modern Art in Chicago (2017), The Arts Club of Chicago
(2017), the Art Academy of Cincinnati (2016), The Arts Institute of Chicago (2016, 2012), the Elmhurst Art
Museum (2016), the Evanston Art Center (2016, 2012), the Chicago Urban Art Society (2015), the Riverside Art
Center (2014), the École nationale supérieure d’art de Bourges in France (2014) and the Illinois State Museum
(2012). The artist lives and works in Chicago, IL.