Tom Burtonwood

Composition 6-1-1, Gouache on paper, 30 x 30 inches, 2011, Private Collection

My practice centers on producing systems based artworks situated at the intersection between image making and information technology. I work mostly in series producing multiple works derived from the same set of formal rules. Sometimes several pieces are combined to form larger images or objects. While I like to maintain a set of instructions to work within I build flexibility into how they are deployed and exhibited. At the root of this process is a philosophy of contingency. For me this means creating rules and systems that are amenable to making interesting compositions and sequences of images. My art works are contingent objects both open to interpretation and governed by sets of instructions.

In the spring of 2010 I started the series “Color Studies / Composition Two”. The intention of this series was to learn about color through a sustained period of activity producing a sequence of 100 paintings. The geometric composition was conceptually equivalent to the source code one might use in a computer program or website. This identical visual framework was deployed to create many variations through simple modulations color through of hue and saturation. The blocks were demised in three rows and three columns creating nine individual units. The units were further broken down into three sets based on the square. Each square is divided into an “L,” a “T” and a “period,” which were then extruded and rotated to create multiple permutations from a single simple idea. Thus from a process of repetition and experimentation the phenomena of color is revealed to the viewer through many different outcomes. From this simple series of paintings further works emerged as each image, each painting is in essence a frame in an animation, a page of a book. In this fashion the series was extended into further outputs both in print and online. I like to make artworks that can be disseminated via multiple platforms, to different audiences.  Each painting was posted to the social media platform Facebook. Through this forum the works were distributed to a wide audience, gaining significant impressions before they were exhibited in the real world.

During the production of Composition Two I experimented with other modular painting image making strategies. I introduced QR codes into my visual language as the formal appearance of these matrix barcodes was analogous to the designs in my paintings. Embedding “data” both in and as the image was an important step forward situating the work within a broader set of information systems. Compositions Three, Four and Five all utilize QR codes in various ways by extending my paintings onto mobile devices as animations, tying them to a specific urls / websites, or making the QR code the image itself. With “Composition Six” and “Composition Seven” I have created two different painting systems. In a sense these are meta-systems – concerned with establishing rules for the making of the making of the work. Within each composition several other levels exist whereby the decisions for choice of color and pattern are determined, through systems of number theory, game theory and chance. “Composition Six” takes the same diagonal vertices from “Composition Two” and develops a seamless grid structure that can be easily modified and mutated to create many compositional variations. Whereas earlier designs allowed only for the modulation of color, the series “Composition Six” promotes unique designs from an identical framework. The series “Composition Seven” undertakes a similar line of inquiry. In this framework two similar but different designs are produced both referencing the Golden Ratio in the placement and arrangement of blocks. When combined as a single work the grid structure deployed is asymmetrical – loosely derived from compositional structures found in Byzantine religious icons.

Text is one of the most commonly used inputs and outputs in both the digital and analog worlds. I became aware that my geometric blocks were analogous to letterforms and that my grid structures were akin to paragraphs and text blocks. In the summer of 2011 I produced my first font. It’s title, “Hedgehog-Regular” is a nod of the head to a fictional cipher system featured in Neal Stephenson’s novel The Cryptonomicon. “Hedgehog Regular” is a font that I have created replacing both upper and lower keystrokes a-z with custom geometric blocks. The font has been distributed freely via the Internet as a .ttf file. With this file in the public domain people are able to decode the paintings. Utilizing a custom alphabet as the compositional system for the paintings produced an interesting synergy between formal objective abstraction and embedded data or information.

My recent project for Sidecar Gallery “Cipher Text” utilized the “Hedgehog-Regular” font system, encoding twenty-six three-character Internet acronyms in alphabetical order. This design was translated as a seamless pattern and outputted as wallpaper that served as a context for the paintings, paper fold pieces and reliefs placed on top of it. “Cipher-Text” is a continuation of my interest embedding “data” in seemingly abstract or geometric shapes. There are two different QR codes embedded in the designs. The first QR links to a simple Processing image sequence that acts as a “reveal” – momentarily matching letters A – Z in both Helvetica and Hedgehog. The second QR links back to a website that lists many “internet acronyms.” Using these embedded QR codes visitors are invited to attempt to decode the wallpaper.

Tom Burtonwood was born in Manchester, (UK) in 1974. He received a BA Hons. in Fine Art from Loughborough University (UK) in 1997 and an MFA from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 2001. Recent exhibitions include The Chicago Cultural Center; Sidecar Gallery, Hammond, IN; the residence of the British Consulate, Chicago; Abryant Gallery, Chicago; Hinge Gallery, Chicago; The Center for Book and Paper, Chicago, IL; NEXT Art Fair, Chicago, IL; MDW Fair, Chicago, IL; Gillock Gallery, Paris, France; NOISEfestival, Manchester, UK; The Center for Book and Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago; Fountain Studios, Brooklyn; Three Walls, Chicago. Burtonwood teaches at Columbia College Chicago and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is co-founder of WHAT IT IS, exhibition and project space in Oak Park, IL where he resides. http://tomburtonwood.com