I have been an artist in photography, video art & performance art, and since 1994 in printmaking showing in regional, national and international exhibits. My work of the last few years has involved the exploration of photography and printmaking as a hybrid medium of expression. The work isn't contained within a genre, although landscape and still life studies dominate, but shows concern with texture, the hand manipulation of the image and surface.Â
  For me photography is another way to create images. My Dad gave me a 35 mm camera when I was 11, as I was constantly 'borrowing' his whenever I could get my hands on it; when I was 13 I entered my first photography contest.
  Later all through Viet Nam and four years in the military I carried a camera - both as a way of interpreting what was happening to me and those around me, and to distance myself from it.
  I exhibited photography off and on until I began a career in cinematography and video in the late seventies and received a Master of Art in 1979 from the University of Missouri-KC. I taught mediated communications at Haskell Indian Nations University and later at Northern Illinois University. By 1986, bored with documentaries and commercial video production and seeking to return to the single image, I started a graduate program in studio art, while keeping my day job of producing educational programs in the arts. I found myself taking addition course-work in photography and worked with traditional printmakers in documenting their workshops and classes.
  Upon gaining my MFA, I a took a course in printmaking, and it was a zen moment in the studio: working the plates, inking, pulling prints. A wholly different tradition of the single image, a completely new toolset for me drew me. This was in 1992, and led to 18 hours of post-grad work with intaglio and relief techniques and many more hours with David Driesbach of Miracle Press who for years was the finest example of a person and an artist I'm sure I will ever know; for over a decade he invited me in to document the activities of Miracle Press and the yearly week long master printmaking sessions - his humor and technical skill shows me the way still.
  In 2002 I picked up a digital camera, mostly to record textures I found in wood, stone, mud, and textiles as references in printmaking, and I started thinking immediately about photography from the point of view of a printmaker.
  So I feel that I finally understand enough about the images that I respond to, and most importantly about the images I need to make, to take the journey as photographer and printmaker. Artistic life is full circle, I'm back to that happy kid seeing things truly for the first time in the view finder and the mind's eye, revealed on the plate and paper.
www.timburns-art.com for other work and background information; this functions as an on-line portfolio for me.
tim
Comments (14)
blankfrancine
Fantastic,original!
YorkBerlin
creative artwork geetings York Made in Berlin
anaber
(01292) Something mythical here,i feel!It remember me something related with Egypt...I think i see a figure like a mummy of Faraho or so and the shapes around perhaps gifts??or tresures?This is very beautiful ..i´m astonished with the shining blue and the several tones you did here...and the textures and colours in the background are fascinating!!Your title for me is somehow a challenge but it seems an encoding of a piece.This is another great one from you. Thank you so much for another new series,Tim:)))
helanker
Yes I agree with Ana. I like this alot. It is mighty beautiful. I am looking forward to this series.
tizjezzme
wow, INTERESTING work! Wish I knew how you put this all together; it is truly a wonderful work of ART!
vintorix
Nice. Looking like real world objects but are in fact abtract art! Ingenious.
Realm_Of_Illusion
Wonderful texture! A beautiful composition with so many great details.
tennesseecowgirl
Wonderful work..
anahata.c
it feels like a mix of mechanical parts & serapes & ceremonial fabrics & nuts and bolts gathered from the inner mind. And it's set against a passionate background of blood red textures & lights & forms that are reminiscent of your meditation series. Very complex, partly inexplicable, highly enticing, having a mechanical-parts feeling and a ritual feeling all at once; and coursed through by your scratches and rivers of metallic assault, which draws it all together in a kind of 'unified field'. Inexplicable & concrete, and the piece is amazingly bold & attractive to me. I don't know where this series is going, but if this is the start, I can't wait to see where you'll go with it next. Part II (lol): Buddha! I never saw him! Now it's like shattered pieces of a Buddhist temple which adhere to each other but are torn apart; and they speak to us through strange ages, riven with your intuitive scratch-lines (which are like fading thoughts of the buddha himself), or—like your title—the scratch-lines of a broken descent. Maybe a descent for rejuvenation, maybe for sleep, maybe it's our buddha-nature abandoning us, or maybe it's because we've abandoned it...it doesn't matter, it's descent period—transition, loss, disappearance, metamorphosis, etc...Suddenly the reds become more meaningful, as if his descent is accompanied by deep passions & conflagration (which Buddha would actually ask his followers to overcome. The Fire Sermon? [If you know it:] "The whole world is on fire..." Maybe he's descending out of the fire of life, and will emerge when tranquility is restored...conjecture, conjecture, conjecture, lol...) Well, it still feel like shards, and you still unearth the primal and organic, and it still feels like deep process. But what a new layer Buddha adds, it's only better, Tim, deeper and more suggestive. I truly didn't see the Buddha, but now that I do, the image has mythic proportions...
ShadowsNTime
I think that title would be perfect for this series! I love the way you do this, so different from most art here. Knowing a bit about Buddhism and have several friends who practice it, I would think the descent was that of imparting more knowledge. Making us sit up and pay attention as it were. Thank you so much for the beautiful comment (below) It touched me deeply. And I agree totally with the priests statement! Thank you for sharing that with me!!! I know Tanner would have died because no one on the street cares about animals except to train them to fight, and no one would have looked at the bag he was in, they would have assumed it was trash...Rest assured that I will love this puppy with my heart and give him everything he needs. He is my baby:-) Bless you, huga and our love back to you! by november22 on Jul 29, 2009 9:47:26 am [homepage] What a cutie. As said above, pets give unconditional love - I heard recently a priest say, on the blessing of the animals day, that this is a direct expression of god's love. If one believes that then it follows that those who cruelly reject that, reject god, and so embrace evil and leave their humanity. Their deeds speak for themselves. My hugs to you two, fellow humans, with love - tim
HannaK
exquisite artwork - must be stunning on metal I have no idea how is it possible:printing on hard surface
Jay-el-Jay
A fine image with a richness of textures and an eyecatching glow.
ARTWITHIN
This makes me think of mementoes from material existence. I'm melting over the gorgeous blues. Great depth and dimension. The textures are superb. I love the scratches. Tim, you always provide pleasure for my eyes and mind.
sandra46
splendid creation, may it be interpreted as a giant's junkyard? I don't know why