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Burtonwood & Holmes
Thursday Nov 24, 2005.
By Joanne Hinkel
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With a solo show at Gescheidle gallery this past fall, a current group show at GARDENfresh artist space in the West Loop and art teaching gigs on the side, Burtonwood & Holmes are among the city's most active group of emerging artists. And while many contemporary artists question mass consumerism, patriotism and the American identity, so few are using art the way Burtonwood & Holmes do: to directly protest the role of the arms industry in war and in world economies.
I recently caught up with the lively couple, more formally known as Tom Burtonwood and Holly Holmes, in the faculty lounge at Columbia College, where Burtonwood teaches part-time in the photography department. "I think what we do with the work is cathartic," says Burtonwood. "At the end of the day I feel like I've done what I can and put it down on public record." Not sure that he would categorize his artwork as activism, he adds, "I certainly have not sat at the front of the bus, but I've done what I can."
The pair met while studying at Southern Illinois University in 1998. Burtonwood, a British expatriate, and Holmes have been inseparable ever since, even in the studio. "We started collaborating before we were out of school," Burtonwood says. "We would help each other in projects all the time and we just sort of formalized that process. Now we draw things out, paint them and we'll work together on five pieces at one time." Now married and living in Chicago, the two have been key figures in helping to foster a sense of community among the city's artists. As managing editor of BRIDGE magazine, Burtonwood has been key in exposing the local community to a larger world. He also compiles and edits the "Artist's Story" feature on the Chicagoartistsresource.org, the newly launched and much anticipated city Web site devoted solely to Chicago's artists. "We're definitely community-spirited. It's the only way to make things happen in Chicago," says Burtonwood. Though the two have also exhibited in Burtonwood's hometown of Manchester, England, and contributed their work to "2 Steps Back," an international traveling exhibition, the two agree that Chicago is the place to be.
Chicago's "an ideal city to work and live in because it's more affordable [than New York]," says Holmes. Burtonwood adds, "The art scene in Chicago is just going to grow and grow. What they're doing with the Chicago Art Foundation, what's happening at BRIDGE magazine and in Pilsen, they're just so much momentum."
They're certainly part of the wave. The duo's first public exhibition of work in their series devoted to what they call "materiel culture" was at the Stray Show in 2002, where they displayed a life-size painting of a tank.
Using art as a means to confront the atrocity of war is a risky endeavor in the current political climate, though an essential one. While they concede it is a "bit tricky to market what we do," collectors have started to pursue Burtonwood & Holmes since the Gescheidle show.
Beyond showing in others' spaces, both Burtonwood and Holmes are part of GARDENfresh, a collective artist-run space, where they "don't have the commercial pressure." GARDENfresh had been on hiatus for a year and re-opened this fall in the same building that BRIDGE magazine inhabits at 840 W. Washington. All seven members of the collective are currently exhibiting in "Members Only," a group show at the space.
Luckily, you don't have to be a member to check out Burtonwood & Holmes' work. Tickets to this Friday's benefit, to be held at the Merchandise Mart, are available for $25 at Ticketweb.com and include entry to the 5-8 p.m. event and cocktails and hors d'oeuvres. The GARDENfresh show runs through Dec. 17; hours are noon-5 p.m. Saturday or by appointment.
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If dusting off the primary-colored balls seems a bit, well, dusty, consider trading in the ho-hum for this Christmas tree ornament: a miniature helicopter with red paint, meant to mimic blood, oozing down its sides. The ornament was up for grabs during the Dec. 2 Chicago Art Foundation and Pediatric AIDS Chicago benefit. And though it was in the good company of one-of-a-kind pieces donated by a number of Chicago artists, it's the chopper's collaborative creators, Burtonwood & Holmes, who have us abuzz.
For their solo exhibit at Gescheidle, they "blasted" part of a wall as though it had been bombed, constructed a missile that sat in the middle of the main room, and displayed a series of paintings of various killing devices, from army tanks to machine guns to naval ships, glorified by the distinction of being given portrait status.