Bryan Burk

"Black Bear, Just Right", Ceramic Vase Form with Painted Surface Illustration

2024

The Wild Grace Collection, Horse paintings, Collection of 3. By Addison Jones Limited Edition Series Mixed Media . Signed & Certified A masterful ble...

Important KPM Plaque of a Gladiator Battling a Lion and Tiger in a Colosseum. A woman in distress cowers behind the gladiator as he surmounts his recently slain lion, readying himsel...

Early Morning, Serengeti Search is inspired by Jan Coutts's travels to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Conservation areas of Tanzania. Mixed media triptych on...

This contemporary figurative mixed media composition of a bird is by Peter Hoffer. A masterful Canadian artist, Peter Hoffer’s realistic, exquisitely detailed artwork has been exhib...

Oil Painting / Contemporary Academic Realism / Figurative Art / Animals / Earth Tones

A piece from the exhibition "Cosmic Duality" by artist Mr. Mitote. Mitote is a term we use today to describe a lively, noisy, and excessive gathering. It’s also used to depict tumul...

A piece from the exhibition "Cosmic Duality" by artist Mr. Mitote. Mitote is a term we use today to describe a lively, noisy, and excessive gathering. It’s also used to depict tumul...

A piece from the exhibition "Cosmic Duality" by artist Mr. Mitote. Mitote is a term we use today to describe a lively, noisy, and excessive gathering. It’s also used to depict tumultuous gatherings marked by disorder, commotion, and sometimes even quarrels. In the colonial past, mitote was a celebration commemorating the establishment of the New Spain kingdom, blending local pride with imperial solemnity. However, throughout both ancient times and the present day, mitotes serve as rituals embedded in the culture and religiosity of various indigenous groups in Mexico, such as the Nahua, Cora, Tepehuan, and Huichol. Adorned in rich attire, gathered around a fire amidst the sounds of musical instruments, and under the intoxicating influence of alcoholic beverages, mitotes serve as occasions to invoke sacred beings—whether protective deities of nature or Christian saints associated with agriculture—to pray for bountiful harvests. Mitotes encompass and have always embodied rites, myths, and life. In homage to the artist’s name, this exhibition is presented as a mitote: a celebration displaying the intimate mythologies of its creator through various artistic expressions such as sculpture, artwork, and video. Cosmic Duality is a concept wherein Mr. Mitote delves into memories of his childhood from a contemporary perspective. His mother introduced him at a young age to the traditions and customs of her native Maltrata, Veracruz, a town steeped in the memory of a noble past wherein it fought for its autonomy. Every year on January 1st, to invoke prosperity, the dance of the huehues (meaning “old people” or “elders” in Nahuatl) is performed. According to oral and local traditions, these characters embody foes in a mocked and vanquished manner, dancing beneath the lash of a tiger or devil. Their costumes feature pre-Columbian symbols merged with elements evoking nature, alongside nods to contemporary entertainment culture. Through the observation and interpretation of nature, numerous ancestral cultures created dual cosmologies. Far from viewing opposites, they conceived of dual complementary systems such as chaos-order, cold-heat, humidity-drought, feminine-masculine, and life-death, among others, to uphold cosmic order. Placed within the context of Mexico City, Mr. Mitote reimagines these enduring principles from ancient religious practices alongside contemporary languages. He does so through vibrant entities that blend tradition and innovation, memory and fantasy, past and present, ancestral ceremonies, and urban rituals. Each artwork serves as a reminder that across all latitudes and human territories, culture thrives, tradition evolves continuously, the past is revitalized, and the present shapes the path forward into the future. The body has served as the quintessential conduit bridging two dual dimensions: the human and the divine, the earthly and the celestial, the microcosm and the macrocosm. In several of his artworks, Mr. Mitote invokes propitiatory dances, and ritual practices, aimed at attracting abundant rain and fostering good harvests, many of which entail risking the physical well-being and even the lives of participants. The tiger hunt...

A piece from the exhibition "Cosmic Duality" by artist Mr. Mitote. Mitote is a term we use today to describe a lively, noisy, and excessive gathering. It’s also used to depict tumul...

A piece from the exhibition "Cosmic Duality" by artist Mr. Mitote. Mitote is a term we use today to describe a lively, noisy, and excessive gathering. It’s also used to depict tumul...