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September 29, 2015 – Review
Ian Burn’s "London Works"
Two paintings in Ian Burn’s “London Works” frame the exhibition’s two-year time span, 1965 to 1967—a transformative and immensely productive period in the practice of the Australian conceptual artist, best known as a member of the group Art & Language. Together, these paintings tell a story of oscillation and negotiation between the signifiers and styles of two art worlds: 1960s Melbourne and 1960s London. Burn painted the first before he left Melbourne for London and the second just as he was about to depart London for New York. Figures and Flag, St Kilda (1964) is a Paul Klee-inspired work, featuring playfully scattered thick black lines that recall those painted by the German artist in the early twentieth century, highlighted with fleshy pinks and cool blues that bring to mind seabirds, bare bottoms, and other seaside charms, set in a mustard-yellow field. The painting can be read as abstract, but hints of an outside world persist. This picture also bears the influence of Melbourne’s “Heide Circle,” a group of modernist painters that included artists such as the ostentatious Sidney Nolan, whose Ned Kelly series is a national icon, painted with the black, blues, and ochre later used by Burn. The second …