-Confederation Centre Art Gallery also launching exhibition catalogue ‘Predicaments: Brian Burke, a Retrospective’-

The Confederation Centre Art Gallery (CCAG) is hosting multiple events over the next month to celebrate its current retrospective exhibition on prolific P.E.I. painter Brian Burke. Special thanks are extended to CN 100, exhibition and catalogue sponsor.

Tomorrow—Wednesday, December 4— at 12-noon in the CCAG, a free screening will be held of Island filmmaker Brian Pollard’s Figure in a Landscape. This 25-minute documentary focusing on Burke includes scenes from the painter’s Island studio and opening receptions of his works in San Francisco and New York.

Next, on Thursday, December 12 at 7 p.m., the CCAG will host a book launch and film screening. Enjoy refreshments and a cash bar as the Centre launches the exhibition catalogue Predicaments: Brian Burke, a Retrospective, with essays by Judith Scherer, Robert Slifkin, Heinz Stahlhut, and Pan Wendt.

Following this launch, the public is invited to take a look behind Burke’s well-known 2004-05 portrait series Many Years Later with a screening of Pollard’s 45-minute documentary, also titled Many Years Later. Co-produced by William Harrington, the film features interviews with Burke and the subjects of these paintings—the artist’s friends—who, in the late 1960s, were part of the teenage social scene that frequented the Basilica Recreation Centre in Charlottetown.

Predicaments: Brian Burke, a Retrospective is showing until Sunday, January 5, 2020. Curator Pan Wendt will present a closing day ArtTalk around the exhibition on Sunday, January 5 at 2 p.m. at the CCAG.

The exhibition features over 117 pieces loaned by galleries and private collections all around the world, including several pieces from the permanent collection.  Burke’s paintings are characterized by a challenging intensity and dark wit, focusing on the human figure, and addressing existential themes of isolation, alienation, as well as broader social and political questions. The artist died in 2017, leaving behind an unforgettable visual legacy.

Photo cutline: Island artist Brian Burke (submitted by Judith Scherer.)