Christian Burchard
Artist images courtesy of Christopher Briscoe
Artwork images courtesy of Rob Jaffe
I have been working with wood for most of my life. We are comfortable with each other, have a close relationship and I value the connection immensely. I am curious what is inside, how it works. I am always looking for the gifts it has to offer. At times I am awed by its beauty and the story of its history, the tracks that the passing of time have left. I am driven to expose this beauty, to make it shine. At other times I am more fascinated with its inner structure, its more subtle form and spirit.
To be working this closely with nature is a blessing, but also often overwhelming. It is a struggle. At times I find myself needing to put my foot down, to control the outcome of my work, only to find that I trampled something beautiful. At other times I feel overwhelmed, scared: what is needed of me here,
how can I match the beauty of this living thing? How am I to know when to be loud and when to be quiet...? Maybe this stuff just matches my personality, something to wrestle with, something that stirs my imagination, something to control. That nature versus manmade thing, that struggle, that tension, that conflict.
My work is about my relationship with nature, my desire to connect with it on a deep level. Trying to get under its skin and be part of it. Searching, finding something sacred, adding my touch, wrestling with it. Showing the beauty of it under a different light: exposing, transforming. I make things out of a deep urge to create and out of a driving curiosity. I need to do it. I don't really have a choice in the matter.
Works
Video
Transformation 7 - Contemporary Works in Wood honors Christian Burchard, winner of the
Elizabeth R. Raphael
Founder's Prize of Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, PA.
Video courtesy of Alan i Harris, AiH Group
Museum Collections
Art Museum Of South Texas, Corpus Christi, TX
Arizona State University Museum of Art, Tempe, AZ
Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR
Art for Embassies Program, Washington, DC
Asheville Art Museum, Asheville, NC
Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
Craft & Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA
de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA
Gregg Museum of Art & Design, Raleigh, NC
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
Mint Museum of Craft + Design, Charlotte, NC
Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL
Museum of Arts & Design, New York, NY
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston TX
Racine Art Museum, Racine, WI
Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Royal Cultural Center, Jedda, Saudi Arabia
Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI
University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Wood Turning Center, Philadelphia, PA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT