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Every artist brings to art their own way of making sense of the world in which we live...Taurus Burns does too.  There is no magic and/or separation between living and his art.   Taurus is a son, husband and father who walks firmly in the real world and simply ask that you put your thinking cap on and join him.  As with most artists, his work is about living and in one series, Taurus depicts Detroit's abondoned houses.  Ultimately you will get an honest look at what forces drive him as he talks to AOTCE about life and his art.

AOTCE:  Good Morning Taurus.  

You come highly recommended by artist Richard Lewis

TAURUS BURNS: I love his paintings and he's a great guy.

AOTCE: Did he in any way influence your work?

TAURUS I first saw his paintings when I was still a student

at CCS (College for Creative Studies)

AOTCE:  Did your paths cross other than seeing his work?

TAURUS: I looked up to him because they were painted so well.  

The surface quality, the feel of the poses.  I was a fan of Lucien Freud's figure

paintings and here was Richard's work that looked similar but had diverse

people in them.  I don't remember the first time we met, but I've seen him at

several art events and I've been to his studio.  I was also drawn to the

Bay Area Figure Painters when I was a student.  I loved painting realism and

people, but the BAFP works were very painterly and the abstract that I liked.

I've always been conscious of the dilemma in realism, the physical world is only

part of the big picture.  The BAFP artists were dealing with the psychological and

emotional experience without attempting to capture the details and that was

intriguing to me.  But, at the time I didn't relate to

their experience.  It was Romare Bearden, William H. Johnson and Henry Tanner

that represented my African American experiences.  Currently, I love

Kerry James Marshall's work and I'm a big fan of Kehinde Wiley's paintings.  

Still, I think there's something missing from contemporary art.  An experience that

I relate too, that I don't see in art these days.  Maybe I should look a little harder.  

Or start making it myself.

AOTCE: When you say "there is something missing?  Can you explain?

TAURUS: When I think there's something missing I mean that the rest of American art is focused on color lines and I

just want to see more of the grey areas.

AOTCE: There seems to be a renassiance of artists heading toward photo realism.  Do you see the same trend or is it more than just that? 

TAURUS:  I heard a while back that photo realism is on the rise.  My first thought was, "sweet, people will buy all of my painting now."  But, then again, I'm not a photo realist.  That's not the way I paint.

AOTCE: How would you describe your work.

TAURUS: My work is focused on healing.  The scenes in the paintings I make feel like stories.  The stories are drawn from past or present life challenges and I'm usually looking for some way to understand events better.

AOTCE: I have visited your wesite and the work you do is unique.  By that I  mean, not many artists take on landscapes, in particular houses.  What prompted your exploration of this theme?

TAURUS:  The abandoned houses are part of a series of paintings based on the Detroit landscape.  When I started focusing on abandoned houses I was working through my own issues of abandonment so, I'm very much connected to that image.  The feeling of loss and dread, the absence of warmth and safety was all right there in those paintings for me.

AOTCE: If the houses you paint could talk, what would they say?

TAURUS: They would say there was once love here.

AOTCE: Does your origin of place affect the way you see the world?

TAURUS: I was born in SE Michigan, but moved around a lot when I was a kid.  My dad was in the army so we were always moving to different army bases.  I lived in Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Germany for a short period and I've been back in Michigan since 1986.  I've lived in the Detroit area since 1998 when I moved here for art school.  Because I moved around so much as a kid, divorced parents, art provided the security I sought. Early memories of a teacher praising a drawing that I did of a landscape receding into the distance.  Her praise made me realize there was something I was really good at.  In time making art became a way to express my feeling and validate my experience.  

AOTCE:  You talk about series.  Will your art take another direction and does the changes in the city of Detroit, affect your art in any way?

TAURUS: I've explored a few main themes over the years.  There's the landscape work but I also make work that deals with healing childhood wounds and understanding social problems.  Yes, changes in the city do affect me.  I've been in Detroit long enough to see it go from a practically abandoned ghost town to a thriving, up and coming major destination.  It blows my mind.

AOTCE: It blows your mind, using your words, in what way and how does it impact your art? 

TAURUS Seeing the two extremes in the city.  Going from poverty and despair to the wealth that's pouring in.

AOTCE: What issues are you exploring in your art?

TAURUS: Lately, mostly, racism.  I don't know if racism is political, but recent political events have brought it to the forefront of conversations again. Not just recent political events but the high profile shootings which are obvious.  I can't stand abuse.  Physical can be easier to pinpoint.  Video makes it real for everyone.   Emotional and psycholgical abuse can be harder for those outside of it to understand.  Opression of any kind, racism, sexism empowers me to be proactive in my art for the sake of my wife, daughter and people of color.

AOTCE: Are you, at all concerned with the way your work is perceived by gallery owners, historians, curators, etc?

Taurus: Funny you ask because lately I've been thinking I need to rethink what art is supposed to be.  For years I have been focused on what gallery owners, curators, etc. think about my work and now I want to forget all that and make work that is serving a different purpose.  In a way, getting back to the roots of why I started making art in the first place.  Validating my experiences, and trying to understand the larger forces at work behind the scenes around me. 

AOTCE:  How would you like your art to be seen?

TAURUS: I'm not an expert on social issues.  I draw from personal experiences as I see myself and people around me effected by oppression.  At the root of it I am trying to understand inequality and suffering caused by racism, sexism and poverty.  A while ago I took my wife and kids to see the movie "Loving".  It's a great movie about an interracial couple that married at a time when that was still illegal.  I loved that the movie allowed me to connect to it because I am a product of such a union.  I am working toward making art that is about those kinds of injustices, about a system that keeps people separate, afraid, and trapped.

 

 

Taurus Burns/Artist

Photography by Jeff Cancelosi

All images are the exclusive rights of the artist Taurus Burns

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