A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.
Portrait of a person standing indoors

Robert Burnier

Assistant Professor

Bio

Education: MFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Drawing (2016). BS, Computer Science, Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania (1991). Exhibitions: O One, O None, Through the Night at Blank Projects, Cape Town, South Africa, O No One, O You, Around a Mortar of Fire at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, Rob Barnard, Robert Burnier & Julian Stair, at Corvi-Mora gallery, London, Song Cycle at David B. Smith gallery Denver, CO, Temple at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Chicago, Black Tibernius at the Chicago Riverwalk, Of No Particular King, at Arts Club of Chicago, Primary, at Korn Gallery, Drew University, New Jersey, Lip To My Ear, at Vacation Gallery, New York, Objectified, at Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn, So That Justice Should be Tyrant, at Andrew Rafacz Gallery, Ghost Nature at Gallery 400, Chicago, IL and La Box, Bourges, France, The Chicago Effect: Redefining the Middle at the Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL, Imaginary Landscapes, curated by Allison Glenn, at Chicago Urban Art Society and Jenny From the Color Block, at the Cincinnati Art Academy. Exhibitions: a solo show at Corvi-Mora, London, and international fairs NADA Miami and Art Toronto. 

His work has also been exhibited at art fairs in London, Cape Town, Miami, New York, Chicago, Dallas and Copenhagen. He has served on the boards of several arts organizations, including Heaven Gallery, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Chicago.


The folded and compressed forms retain a history of their own becoming – the colors of ancient African, Mediterranean and Mesopotamian objects yield inspiration. But the work has its demands, as do I, a communion of what is within and without, to understand this sovereignty, this being. For the past might be as different from now as we expect of the future, and we are the arch on the shifting ground between. L. L. Zamenhof’s utopian language of Esperanto, a bridge from existing linguistic traditions, resonates through the titles of the work. A universality without erasure, a reconstruction without a blank slate

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

Painting Practice is an introductory painting course offering. The curriculum addresses basic skills as related to a painting studio practice. Topics and curricular goals include material, facility and technique, space and color, as well as concept. This course is a prerequisite for all Multi-level Painting, Figure Painting and Advanced Painting Studio classes.

Class Number

1654

Credits

3

Description

This drawing studio serves as a broad introduction to historical and contemporary drawing practices. This course presents drawing as an organizer of thought, experience, and image.

Students will investigate a full range of drawing materials and supports. Lectures and exercises introduce various concepts of drawing, possibly including illusionistic form and space, gesture and expressive mark-making, or collage and found imagery, depending on the instructor?s emphasis.

Designed to accommodate many skill levels, students can explore various creative strategies through technical drawing exercises, material explorations, and individual projects. Structured classroom critiques will bring drawing concepts into personal student work.

Class Number

1895

Credits

3

Description

This studio explores specific problems in each student's area of concentration and interest. Students are expected to command familiarity with problems of color, composition, and basic materials.

Class Number

1908

Credits

9

Description

This studio explores specific problems in each student's area of concentration and interest. Students are expected to command familiarity with problems of color, composition, and basic materials.

Class Number

1621

Credits

9

Description

This course looks at the range of concerns that inform and shape the making as well as the reception of paintings in a contemporary context. As a class, we will read, discuss and debate a range of historical and contemporary texts by artists, art historians, cultural theorists and critics on the continuing role and impact of painting as an art form, market force, and culture shaper, along with readings addressing the ability of art --and of painting in particular-- to effect political, ethical, and psychic change on both an individual and a broader social and cultural level.

Thematic topics, readings and screenings will vary but are typically chosen in reference to specific VAP or Departmental artist lectures offered during the semester of the course. Readings/topics may relate to one or more of the following: disability theory and the relationship of art to self-care; the relationship of visibility politics to current impulses in painting; the relationship of art to work, labor and leisure; the case of 'zombie formalism' and market effects on painting trends; the role of autobiography in art making and painting practices in particular.

Mandatory individual studio critiques of 45-60 minutes each; weekly written outlines/quick bullet-point responses to one or more class readings; mandatory attendance to VAP lectures and other lectures if scheduled at same time as seminar class; final paper consisting of a critical review of a painting exhibition currently on view in Chicago.

Class Number

2016

Credits

3

Description

Studio Projects:Independent studio work under the guidance of a faculty advisor. Post-Baccalaureatee studio students receive a list of scheduled advisors. Writing Projects: Independent tutorial work with the guidance and encouragement of a faculty advisor. Post-Baccalaureate writing students receive a list of scheduled advisors. The student registers for 6 credit hours of Post-Baccalaureate Projects during each semester of study.

Class Number

2162

Credits

3 - 6

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1697

Credits

3