Born 1982 in the United Kingdom
Lives and works in Rome

There is an ancient, alien quality to many of Burke’s sculptures. Tasselled, clasped, pleated, puckered, burnished and furrowed, the works’ potency lies in their balance of indecipherability and familiarity. Palm shaped and dimpled, the cast works take on a luminous tactility, an imagined charge. Burke recalls memories of objects imbued with a sacred power through childhood eyes - a purloined yellow stone ring worn to school surreptitiously; bellows admired on a mantlepiece from afar; decorative brass shoes, stiff and impractical, worn and shuffled around her grandmother’s house. The draw of these objects - coveted, admired, chronicled - lingers passively, lustrously, within Burke’s sculpture.

Joanne Burke’s sculptures embody the idea of transfiguration, recollecting both the ancient, biblical sense of the word, but also an alchemical sense of things transforming from one state to another. Speaking about her process, Burke describes the unique practice of wax water casting. Here, wax is cast in controlled water to create unpredictable skins. Through a process of whittling, melting, and reworking, the artist excavates a form, as if the objects were gradually and timorously revealing themselves. Much like surrealist grattage, this technique allows chance to factor centrally into the works. Unlike surrealist grattage, the works take on prophetic qualities in a process not dissimilar to ancient divination techniques popular in cultures across Europe used to predict fortunes through water casting.

Recent group exhibitions include: 'Curtains', Bibeau Kreuger, New York, 2023, BLISS POOL, Space K Seoul, Donna Huanca performance, Seoul, 2023, BIJOUX, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Los Angeles, 2022, The Essential Goods Show, Fisher Parrish, New York, 2020, A Ten Boed Poynt In A Wave, Operativa Arte Rome, Rome, 2019, Several Walls, Swiss Institute Rome, Rome, 2019