Biography
Angela Burson (b. 1969, Liberty, Missouri) is a visual artist working in various media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, and needlework. Influenced by anachronistic images of fashion and personal objects, her paintings feature figures, their belongings, and interior spaces that indicate complex psychological and social relationships with one another. Often, Burson renders the figures headless so the viewer sees the clothed body not as a portrait but as a collection of objects and patterns, creating a surreal connection between realistic subject matter and flat, repetitive design. The objects, personages, or fragments of a body are often culled from Burson's existing family photographs. Shirts, empty suits, bandaged arms, headless torsos, a suitcase, a cat, a toy, a vacant room, and myriad other everyday objects and scenes are all employed as signifiers, providing glimpses into the complexities of identity and the ripe potential for meaning-making in the relationships between objects.
Burson is an alumna of the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she received her B.F.A. in Painting in 1991. Now based in Savannah, Georgia, the artist has exhibited her work across the U.S. and abroad, at the SCAD Museum of Art (Savannah, GA), Hashimoto Contemporary (New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA), Tong Art Advisory SoHo Salon (New York, NY) Gallery Most (Podgorica, Montenegro), and Galería Rafael Pérez Herando (Madrid, Spain). Her work has been featured in New American Paintings, Juxtapoz Magazine, Wide Walls, Create Magazine, Creative Boom, Frankie Magazine, The Jealous Curator Blog, and Paprika Southern Magazine.