Ernesto Burgos: Gyre

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Excerpt from “The Second Coming” by W.B. Yeats, 1919

Parrasch Heijnen is pleased to present Gyre, the gallery’s first solo exhibition with Ernesto Burgos (b. 1979, Santa Clara, CA).

Emblazoned with imagery derived from the natural world, Burgos’ organically shaped paintings exist as flowing forms relaying the illusionary and physical space of abstraction caught in mid-motion. The exhibition title references the metaphorical use of the word “gyre” in W.B. Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”, as well as its definition in nature. The constant movement implied in the poem parallels the works circling around themselves, drifting upward and outward to create their own center. 

Burgos’ forms reflect a cycling of time, as a play between idea, gesture, and material. The warping motions of his multi-dimensional paintings preserve a history of movement. In flattening sculptural angles, Burgos suggests a malleable dimension by embracing the materiality of paint. The work contorts and expands while the viewer’s perspective shifts in relation to the surface; Burgos alters the discernable space adding depth to each reverberating motion. 

Leaving remnants of the past, Burgos paints with loose and winding brushstrokes, then systematically returns to the picture, dissolving areas in suggestive erasure. Resonating as a disquiet harmony on wrought surfaces, the artist leaves traces of visible tension.

Each stroke mimics the controlled shape through an inverse, manipulated relationship. In an optical play, these highly worked planes readily juxtapose textures: rich and fluid, powdery and polished, thick and glossy, coarse and chalky. Physically rubbing the contoured edge with his hands, Burgos burnishes the painting’s “frame” in dark or colored hues, surrendering material boundaries. 

Starting with a horizontal plane, Burgos allows gravity to naturally drag down areas where the application of fiberglass and resin begin to weigh. As he works against this natural force, he bends, props, and directs the surface as the material dries into its final contours. These heavily ambiguous structures are hand-sanded and smoothed until the original medium is nearly indistinguishable. The result becomes a pictorial plane that informs painterly reaction. 

In a composite of classical devices and personal abstraction, Burgos redefines dimensionality, guiding the eye with movement and shadow. Working in the space between object and atmosphere, Burgos readily challenges the traditional constraints of painting by radiating beyond the edge.