In Focus: Ed Burkes talks to Janine Derbyshire about life as an artist during ‘lockdown’.
Ed in his Banks Mill Studio © Ed Burkes
Ed shares his creative influences in art and music, his forthcoming solo exhibition at the Museum & Art Gallery and the exciting journey that lies ahead.
Since graduating from Falmouth University in 2016 with a BA in Fine Art, Burkes’ work has been selected for a number of group exhibitions, including Saatchi Invest in Art and FBA Futures 2017, shortlisted for Bloomberg New Contemporaries and exhibited at London Art Fair with Arusha Gallery.
In 2016, he won the Wilhelmina Barns-Graham Travel to Italy Award and in 2019 he became the winner of the eighth Jonathan Vickers Fine Art Award. This biennial award, established by Foundation Derbyshire in 1998, has seen Ed take up a nine-month residency in Derbyshire where he has produced work inspired by the county’s landscape, heritage and people, under the broad theme “Sense of Place”.
His show Dandelion opens in September 2020 and will showcase paintings and sculpture created during a very unusual residency. With added challenges such as a pandemic and weeks of lockdown, Ed discusses how this experience has actually enriched his creative thought and how he has adapted his practice to produce a truly vibrant body of work.
Dandelion opens to the public on Friday 11 September - Sunday 21 February 2021
You can listen to the conversation here or download to your device (25mb). A transcript of the conversation can be downloaded here (word document).
To find out more about the artists who have inspired Ed, see more about Mary Tillman Smith here, and Rose Wylie here.
To read more about the Derbyshire well dressings tradition Ed mentions in the interview, click here.
'Bulldog' 120x180cm oil on canvas. © Ed Burkes
A3 work on paper collage. © Ed Burkes