Q&A with Painter Jack Burbridge by Bobbi Kittner

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1. Congratulations on your show just opening at Waverly. Tell us more about what went into the making of this body of work?

 

The show is called “Passengers & Pilgrims” and it started with paintings I did after an El Camino pilgrimage my wife Nancy and I took in 2023. This trip got me back to painting more seriously. The countryside was so full of light and beauty that I wanted to recapture some of that feeling in the paintings and to reopen that world. A while ago I had done a lot of drawings as a Metro commuter into DC, after my mother and father had died. This was a way for me to connect, to see people in this transitory space, sometimes in a crowd and sometimes alone, traveling. Like many people, I’ve spent a lot of time commuting. The drawings were a way to transform the everyday commute into something transcendent - like visual poetry. I also took photos of the city from the train during those years, mainly around Rhode Island Avenue station and its descent toward NoMa, and those made it into smaller paintings.

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Finally, I wanted to include some larger figurative work because it seemed to fit this broader theme of being on a journey, in transition. Things happen. Sometimes I’m a passenger; sometimes a pilgrim. The third option is pausing and looking…being in that moment and embracing it.  

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2. Could you share how you choose your subject and what inspires you the most when making your choice?

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I love painting outside because everything is always changing and alive. And there’s just so much of it! I like responding to that, being a part of it and in it through drawing and painting. I like how shadows move and birds and people show up and then leave. I also love creating landscapes that come from photos I take. That process is slower and more deliberative, like building a fictional world, trying to nudge it toward believability and seeing if/how I can make it come alive. Plus, I can work at night. Both processes feed each other. More than being a “landscape painter” I am interested in drawing and painting what I see – people, places, things. I love drawing the figure. The drawings from my time commuting on the Metro are about connecting to people and responding to a world that is always in change.

 

​3. How has your art changed over time?

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I hope that I am getting better at responding to what I see and feel and what matters to me. That seems to be a lot about light and a better use of color/value. Blocking and tackling. I hope that I am reducing my dud ratio.

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4. What is the biggest challenge you face when creating one of your pieces?

 

Each piece presents its own challenges/problems to be solved. I assume things are going to be harder than they present and that maybe the challenges will be those I have enough energy to take on. A bigger work can be in ways easier than a small one. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to do but later realize I don’t know how to do it, or maybe that original idea wasn’t the real idea I wanted. But that’s also the impetus to work, to find out what the compelling idea is. I apply processes and approaches, and hopefully raise my awareness of what I am doing and what can open up the unexpected in the moment. Mostly, the challenge is learning how to look and listen and try things… being open to unexpected ideas and having a beginner’s mind.

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5. Tell us a bit about your studio practice.

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I have been able to draw and paint nearly every day over the past year, barring minor health issues. There were periods in my life that I wasn’t doing that. I am a fan of audiobooks, anything with a good story. It plays in the background. I feel like it connects me to bigger things as I work. Sometimes I listen to music which can be ambient or high energy and loud. I mainly paint in a windowless basement studio at night or outside in the daylight.

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6. Often the process of making art involves working through an ugly phase. What is one of your techniques for moving through this phase?

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The ugly phase seems to be the phase I am living with most of the time, so I try to embrace it. It’s closest to reflecting the truth of where I am in my development. Some aspects seem to be working well, some not. I think the work is a litmus or mirror for how timid or courageous I am in the effort of doing it. That is more instructive than, you know, did I get that eyelash right? Unless the eyelash is super important to me. You can imagine an entire painting about the eyelash. Then maybe how it connects to the eyelid. The flaws in my works provide an opening into how I can see more fully. My view of the work can also be flawed, which is why. I like to leave works around and look at them at different times of the day as I am walking past and see if they will tell me what they need to become more fully realized.

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7. Who or what are your biggest artistic influences?

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I have a bunch of north stars. Henri Matisse is the biggest for his relentless courage and drive to reinvent. His work is a response to the primacy of the moment and at the same time grounded in all the painting experience that came before. The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master are two biographies by Hillary Spurling that are revelatory. So many painters, to name just a few: Cezanne, Diebenkorn, Fairfield Porter, Nell Blaine, and the old Dutch and Spanish masters etc, and the words and spirit of my teachers give me guidance and encouragement every day. I feel very lucky.

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8. I know you teach art. How does that affect your own art practice?

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I love helping people see. Seeing is an innately human skill, so I find a lot of value in helping people develop this skill and maybe a sense of mastery. It helps us be in the moment, here, now. That is a source of wisdom the Buddhists talk about. Teaching forces me to put into words experiences I have so that I can share those effectively to another person, and it opens me up to listening and trying to understand what that person is experiencing. There is always mutual learning. When I go to the studio, I want to bring that renewed sense of humility and encouragement to what I am working on.

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9. What are your favorite places to see art and why?

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I am a museum person. I love the big museums because I can walk around and be moved by ambitious and amazingly accomplished work. I have to admit that I also like seeing art on my social media feeds because it reminds me of painters I love who maybe I’ve forgotten about and contemporary painters who inspire me.