In a narrative, representational artwork, it might be easy to intuit a story. In a portrait, we might well imagine the artist’s fidelity to the human subject. In the hands of a surrealist, the “real” might present itself as an absurdist dream. Each of these varied instances offers the viewer a leg to stand on: a comprehensible image, which allows us to say, “that is this” or “this is that.” The image holds some familiarity to the observer.
Belgian surrealist René Magritte began to challenge the certainty of what appears to be the “real” when he made "The Treachery of Images," on which he added the statement, “Ceci n’est pas une pipe,” but along with his tacit recognition that a painting of a pipe is, as he said, not a pipe, he names the very thing from which the image takes its form.
In an entirely different way, Peter Burega’s art approaches reality from what could be described as nonobjective abstraction - as it isn’t abstracting a specific, definable thing. Nature? Yes, you’ll glean the sense of it in his canvases, but can you pick out a leaf, a lake located somewhere in a physical landscape, or even a shape that’s most certainly a line of distant trees or mountains?
No. Not when merely engaging the five senses. Not in any tangible way. This perhaps is the true genius of the work of Peter Burega. His is the power in these paintings to activate intuition and the unexpected connections made in the mind of the viewer to tell stories, which is no less true, no less “real,” than the work of realist landscape painters, hyperrealist portraitists, or even documentary photographers.
"West of the Moon No. 2," one of several works from Burega’s solo exhibition at LewAllen Galleries entitled "West of the Moon," compels the viewer to call it a landscape, which it isn’t, at least not in a literal sense. It is, perhaps, an evocation of landscape, or a feeling tone recalling some faint memory of place. As one writer has suggested, “An engaging personal vision of nature as an intangible, ethereal, sacred place of light and color.”
Perhaps it is no place and exists as a realm of elusive forms that merely suggests a seascape with structures on the horizon, boats, or buildings along a distant shore. The flash of orange in the nebulous distance, the ochre tones, and smoky blues and creams might lend it the feeling of an ageing photograph of an indeterminate subject or of no subject.
Intuition is a key to understanding and relating to the work of Burega and is inherent in his process. Unlike Proteus, who revealed his truth under the firm grip of Menelaus, Burega’s work often starts in some concrete way, as an experience photographing out in nature. But back in the studio his grip is less firm, liberated, and the fluid, mercurial nature of his subject is given more reign. "West of the Moon No. 7," for instance, appears as a parting of the clouds, outlining a clear path through the sky. But that same path rises, with a dark blue plume, its nebulous form flat on top like a mesa or an anvil.
It’s the ethereal nature of Burega’s process of layering and scraping and creating haphazard patterns in a simultaneously staccato and linear approach that’s reminiscent of Cubism. If you took the work of the Impressionists, or the Romanticists (particularly J.M.W. Turner), and filtered it through a Cubist lens, it might look something like this. Burega is like a modern-day Turner, dialing up the abstraction not just to evoke the feeling tones inherent in our relationship to the natural world, but opening the channel to greater truths that soar from his canvases, giving freer reign.
For the viewer, that means not just looking but “listening” for this tonal sense of the intuitive that emanates from the painting. Some artists abstract the real. Burega seeks the real in the abstraction. In other words, it isn’t necessarily the leaves or the trees or the mountains or the rivers and lakes that inspire in themselves. It’s the tone in nature on a given day, perhaps, or something more indefinable that seeks to express itself in ways that are only comprehended by means of extrasensory perception gained beyond our usual six senses.
"West of the Moon" is a series of paintings and a metaphor. West is the direction of the setting sun, which is always rising somewhere even as it sets. The duality suggested in that relationship between celestial spheres is mirrored in Burega’s work, which balances opposing forces. Those forces are the metaphorical forces of nature, as well as the push-pull aspect of the creative process itself. The dynamic is present in the simultaneously fluid and linear aspects of the paintings and in its contrasts of dark and light tones.
Burega, who was born in 1965 in Montreal, Canada, currently lives and works part of the year on the island of Sint Maarten, French West Indies and part of the year in Savannah, Georgia. He trained to be a concert pianist at the Royal Conservatory of Toronto in the early 1980s and earned a J.D. from Whittier College in Los Angeles in 1991.
Working now for the first time for this exhibition on canvas, he works intuitively or instinctively, and his process itself is a drawn-out version of that transcendent moment of realization that the confrontation between Man and Nature is one-sided and the conflict itself is an illusion. There is no distinction between them. He takes a visceral approach to the creation of a painting, using trowels, palette knives, and power tools in an aggressive additive and subtractive process that, somehow, yields a symphony of harmonious color or even quietude.
"West of the Moon" also indicates a region (west) where the moon is not located. So, it could mean west of the real or definable, pointing to that indistinct realm where voices whisper, but we almost never hear them until we slow ourselves down long enough to listen as well as look.
Between all these contrasting, complimentary, and contradictory elements, a synthesis takes over, lending each painting an overall harmony of color, form, and mood. His compositions take on depth and scope, but he makes no clear distinction between physical space and inner space, or the interior landscapes of the soul. For Burega, and ultimately – fortunately – for his viewers, here is the real.
--Michael Abatemarco
West of the Moon, No. 11, 2023
Oil and mixed media on panel, 39.5 x 59.5 inches
West of the Moon, No. 7, 2023
Oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches
West of the Moon, No. 10, 2023
Oil on canvas, 39.75 x 69.75 inches
West of the Moon, No. 2, 2023
Oil on canvas, 36 x 72 inches
West of the Moon, No. 13, 2023
Oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches
West of the Moon, No. 8, 2023
Oil on canvas, 36.75 x 82.5 inches
West of the Moon, No. 3, 2023
Oil on canvas, 44.75 x 71.25 inches
West of the Moon, No. 6, 2023
Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches
West of the Moon, No. 4, 2023
Oil on canvas, 34.75 x 87.5 inches
1984-87 B.A. from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
1987-91 Juris Doctorate from Whittier College, Los Angeles, CA
1990 Comparative Law from University of Florence, Florence, Italy
2023 West of the Moon, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
Abbozzo Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2022 Changing Light, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
All the Stars in the Sky, Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
SouthHampton Art Fair, Abbozzo Gallery
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2021 SmithKlein, Boulder, CO
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2020 The Sky Lies Open, LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
2019
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
Art on Paper (LewAllen Galleries), New York, NY
New River Fine Art, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
2018 Walter Wickiser Gallery, New York, NY
Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Smith Klein Gallery, Boulder, CO
Abbozzo Gallery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
New River Fine Art, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
L.A. Art Fair, Los Angeles, CA
2017 Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Smith Klein Gallery, Boulder, CO
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
New River Fine Art, Ft Lauderdale, FL
2016 Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Smith Klein Gallery, Boulder, CO
New River Fine Art, Ft Lauderdale, FL
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
SR Brennan Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
2015 Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2014 Julie Mushafer, Boston, MA
Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2013
Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
2012 Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Melissa Morgan Fine Art, Palm Desert, CA
2011 Craighead Green Gallery, Dallas, TX
Hunter Kirkland Contemporary, Santa Fe, NM
Pryor Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
2010 McLarry Modern, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2009 Meyer East Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
Bennett Street Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2008 Meyer East Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, New York, NY & Palm Desert, CA
2007 Gallery 225, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, New York, NY
Mulry Fine Art, Palm Beach, FL
2007 Art Basel, Miami, FL
2006 Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA & New York, NY
2005 Mulry Fine Art, Palm Beach, FL
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Coda Gallery, New York, NY
2005 Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
2004 Ventana Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art, Boca Raton, FL
2003 Waxlander Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
Coda Gallery, New York, NY
2002 Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
Waxlander Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Coda Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Coda Gallery, Palm Desert, CA
Ruth Bachofner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Long Beach Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA
West of the Moon, No.1, 2023, Oil on canvas, 53 x 45 inches
