Leda | Acrylic & Oil on Paper | 37" x 24" | 2016
Himmelblick | Acrylic & Oil on Wood Panel | 10" x 10" | 2011
False Pretenses | Acrylic & Oil on Paper | 30" x 21" | 2016
Veil | Acrylic & Oil on Wood Panel | 7" x 5.75" | 2012
Artist Statement: Marc Burckhardt’s work is inspired by the fantastic, the historic, the beautiful, the familiar and the grotesque. He uses the Western visual language which has its roots in religious imagery but came to full fruition in Dutch secular painting—work that was about aggrandizing the material: landscapes, still-lifes, portraits, and animals. Although much of Marc’s work is personal in nature, he applies the symbols and forms behind those historical genres to question what we value, and how we interpret the visual iconography we’ve inherited from the European tradition. By combining historical form and allegory with the surprise of the surreal, he hopes the viewers begin to ask themselves why we so readily accept the stories art history tells us, and to look beyond form to content.
I was born in Germany to an American mother and a German father, but grew up in a small, conservative town in Texas where they taught both as university professors. I spent my summers in Germany, and the life between these two very different worlds allowed me to take an outsider perspective from an early age—something that I believe was priceless to my development as an artist. The work of Flemish masters has a particularly profound influence on my work from an early age: the dark, stiff quality of the pictures left me at once frightened and delighted. I received a Bachelor in Art History and Printmaking from Baylor, followed by a degree in painting from Art Center College of Design, then began my career in New York. Today I divide my time between Austin, Texas and Bremen, Germany.