Richard Burke’s uncles were falconers. At the age of 5 he watched from a distance, “astounded at those crazy birds,” he recalls. He also recalls discovering three young kestrels in a cage, so mesmerized that he opened the door to the cage and they flew away. There was anger around the farm, but he learned later that the three birds eventually returned home.
Tercel, limestone, 16 x 5½ x 5 in.
He also recalls that as a teenager he was visiting a friend and saw moss growing all over the old stone steps. “It floored me that you could see time—visual and imperceptible at the same time. In my art I’m creating something that’s physically almost timeless. To me that is in a sense a celebration of our short, punctuated time here and the enormous amount of time that has passed.”
His interest in sculpture goes back to that of ancient Egypt and to the animal sculptures found in limestone caves in Germany and France that date back 43,000 to 33,000 years.
Vulnerable, sandstone, 15 x 8 x 5 in.
Today, he portrays birds of prey primarily in limestone, an organic sedimentary rock that, itself, imbues his sculpture with a sense of time. He goes on hikes around his home in Wyoming looking for stones that have formed or broken into geometric shapes—either looking for a stone to fit an idea he has, or being inspired by the shape of a stone he discovers on site.
Tercel is a limestone sculpture that will be included in the exhibition, Richard Burke: Iconic, at Gallery Wild in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, August 21 to 30.
The head of a male kestrel emerges life-size from the top of a 16-inch column of limestone, its beak lined up with the 90-degree edge of the stone. The smoothness of its head, eyes and beak contrast with the natural roughness of the stone.
Indifferent, sandstone, 20 x 9 x 6 in.
“Early on,” he explains, “I overworked everything to make it as realistic as I could. As I grew, I learned there was actually magic in leaving those natural surfaces, making it obvious that it wasn’t worked.”
Burke not only leaves much of the stone’s texture when he carves his birds, but he also leaves accretions like lichen to remind the viewer of the stone’s earthiness and its own history. The mesmerizing effect is especially profound in his sandstone sculpture Indifferent.
Commenting on the hauteur of the Indifferent raptor Burke says, “Birds of prey have a look. I just feel like their stare is intimidating—their eyes say they mean business. There’s a definite wildness about the stare of a bird of prey.”
Astute, limestone, 21 x 6½ x 8 in.
“I may be just as interested in stone as I am birds,” he remarks. “I sometimes find stones I don’t want to touch because I love what nature has done already—their beautiful textures and brokenness. Those are as important as the birds.” —
Gallery Wild 80 W. Broadway » Jackson Hole, WY 83001 » (307) 203-2322 » www.gallerywild.com
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