Sculptor Marina Burt has just completed her graduate residency at Gray’s School of Art. It’s a journey that has taken her from engineering through oil painting to working in three dimensions and now it looks set to take over her family home…
‘Originally, I started oil painting and then I joined Gray’s School of Art, to learn how to paint ‘properly’. Quite unintentionally,
I found myself in sculpture, becoming totally immersed and fascinated’. ‘My work develops organically. It’s a quest to find beauty and understanding, an opportunity to experiment and discover. I enjoy ceramics, fine bone china particularly, silver for its connotations and recently I’ve been working with silkworms, theirsilk, cocoons and the stunningly interesting moths’.
‘I have loved being a Graduate in Residence; the opportunity to use the facilities, develop ideas in a fantastic studio space, talking to and helping students. Just being there in a fabulous creative environment has been great’.
‘It’s a pity that studio space is so scarce, expensive and difficult to find, especially in the North-east. Unfortunately for my family, my home will be filling that need; an inevitable extension of art becoming so much of my life!’
‘The starting point for a piece is developed through musings, exploring material properties and limitations and a slow process of experimentation. I have realised that I appreciate a kind of worn, honest, imperfect kind of beauty, full of narrative and a deeply immersive appreciation. The things that don’t quite work teach me more about my assumptions and prejudices, so it’s an iterative and highly rewarding process’.
‘Some of my work will be in the RSA in Edinburgh this December, as part of the Society of Scottish Artists exhibition. Otherwise, it lives in my garden and home and becomes part of my slightly eccentric world’. Marina is happy to discuss commissions.
Phone: 07599 289630
E-mail: marina.burt@gmail.com
www.marinaburt.weebly.com