Reflection
Charles Burwell, American, born 1955
2012
Acrylic on canvas
Overall: 60 × 56 in. (152.4 × 142.2 cm)
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth: Purchased through a gift from Dennis Alter and the Hood Museum of Art Acquisitions Fund
© Charles Burwell
2012.67
Geography
Place Made: United States, North America
Period
21st century
Object Name
Painting
Research Area
Painting
On view
Label
African American artist Charles Burwell uses vibrant colors and repeating patterns to reflect on the death of his beloved mother, for whom he had long been the primary caregiver. Burwell’s multilayered motifs derive from his varied interests in electrical charts, maps, plant life, fossils, and cave paintings. His source materials become obscured and abstracted as forms overlay, mirror each other, and repeat. Burwell’s complex visual language simultaneously evokes the grief that accompanies mourning and the cherished joyful memories of loved ones who are no longer with us.
From the 2024 exhibition Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, curated by Michael Hartman, Jonathan Little Cohen Associate Curator of American Art
Course History
WRIT 5, Expository Writing, William Craig, Winter 2014
SART 25.01, Painting I, Enrico Riley, Winter 2020
Exhibition History
Beyond the Bouquet: Arranging Flowers in American Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 18, 2024 - late 2025.
Charles Burwell: Everything is a Series of Adjustments, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 6-30, 2012.
In Residence: Contemporary Art at Dartmouth, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-July 6, 2014.
Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, February 25-March 11, 2013.
Publication History
Michael R. Taylor and Gerald Auten, In Residence: Contemporary Artists at Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2013, ill. p. 117 , no. 107
Provenance
Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; sold to present collection, 2012.
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