Karen Woodbury Gallery is pleased to announce Jane Burton’s solo exhibition ‘White Stain’, a series of photographic works on display from 26 October – 19 November. Burton’s new works deal with images and ideas surrounding light, shadow, fragility, decay and the female form. The audience is presented with a series of images of anonymous naked female bodies that inhabit mysterious dark interiors. The singular female form is a central theme in Burton’s work. In ‘White Stain’ the figures appear, ‘isolated in light fall, at once revealed but also self-contained and protected.’
The contrast between light and shadow is accentuated by the spills of light, allowing the viewer to take on the role of voyeur. Dark and light voids are presented creating a dichotomy between the unknown and transparent, the pure and contaminated. In ‘White Stain’, white light represents ‘freedom, pain, release, blindness, ecstasy (and) obliteration.’ In one image a female figure sits on a wicker chair wearing only nude high heels. Illuminated in light her face is unseen, covered by her jet-black hair, her left leg is raised and bent, with her foot perched on the chair.
In the recesses of shadow it is ‘difficult to determine the psychological state of the figures, they do not reveal themselves mentally, however, ‘their accentuated postures within the space suggest a consciousness or motivation at play, clues to a narrative beyond the frame.’
Burton’s new photographs present a contrast between smooth and hard textures as a vision of palpability is conveyed. The notion of a stain is examined in terms of the duration of time; of existence. Within this paradigm, Burton’s figures thus appear to serve as ‘evidence of the work of time…traces that linger, then fade and dissolve.’
Burton was born in 1966 and lives and works in Melbourne. She completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart in 1991 and completed a Honorary Research Associate at the Tasmanian School of Art, Hobart in 1993. Burton has held a range of significant solo exhibitions that include: In the blood, Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale (2011); Eye of the Beholder, Glen Eira City Gallery, Melbourne (2009); Wormwood, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne (2007); Ivy, Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne (2009) and I did it for you, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2005)
She has participated in several important group exhibitions that include: Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award, Gold Coast Arts Centre, QLD (2011); National Photography Prize – Modern Narratives: Photography as Story Teller, Albury Art Gallery, Albury (2010); Finalist, William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize 2010, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill (2010); William and Winifred Bowness Photography Prize 2009, Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill (2009); The Lake, Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney (2009); Dark Dreams + Fluorescent Flesh, SASA Gallery, South Australian School of Art, Adelaide (2009); Trace Elements, Tokyo Opera City Gallery, Tokyo (2008); neo-goth: back in black, The University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane (2008); National Photographic Portrait Prize , National Portrait Gallery, Canberra (2007); and Light Sensitive: Contemporary Australian Photography from the Loti Smorgon Fund, National Gallery of Victoria (2006).
Burton’s work is held in major public collections such as: National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Macquarie Bank; Murdoch University, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Newcastle Region Art Gallery, Monash University, Artbank, Australia Post and Monash Gallery of Art, The Sovereign Art Foundation.
