The history and development of the pictorial tradition in the West is punctuated by many formal and conceptual tensions, among them the tension between representation and abstraction, between mimesis and personal expression, between objectivity and subjectivity, between the artist and the viewer. The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden is pleased to present Judith Burton: Visual Nuances, a solo exhibition featuring twenty-four paintings and two monotypes by an important Nebraska artist whose aesthetic expression succeeds in celebrating these many tensions and formal subtleties that are such an important part of our visual arts tradition.
However, much attention-perhaps too much attention-has been paid by the contemporary artworld to works of art that have tried to  resolve  these tensions and subtleties. Some contemporary art screams or shouts its meaning, intimidating the viewer into a passive  receptive  role for fear that the artist\u27s message won\u27t be heard. Others sit mute, begging (or daring) the viewer to speak on behalf of them.
In refreshing contrast, Burton\u27s work celebrates the tensions, subtleties, the  visual nuances  that lie at the core of the unique act of image making. Further, Burton\u27s visual imagery is a whisper, the still small voice of the aesthetic in a visual culture that is often drowned out in the sea of aesthetic screaming or amid the  sophisticated  white noise or cynical silence of art institutional brinkmanship

Siedell, Daniel A.

English

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and 
Publications Sheldon Museum of Art 
2000 
Judith Burton: Visual Nuances 
Daniel A. Siedell 
Curator at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska- Lincoln 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs 
 Part of the Art and Design Commons 
Siedell, Daniel A., "Judith Burton: Visual Nuances" (2000). Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and 
Publications. 42. 
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs/42 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sheldon Museum of Art at DigitalCommons@University 
of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications by 
an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 
s H E L D o N 
SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY AND SCULPTURE GARDEN 
Judith Burton: Visual Nuances 
November 24, 1999-January 16, 2000 
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN 
Judith Burton: ViSlJal Nuances 
fig. 4, Scoop, 1999, oil on masonite, Courtesy of the artist 
The history and development of the 
pictorial tradition in the West is 
punctuated by many formal and conceptual 
tensions, among them the tension between 
representation and abstraction, between 
mimesis and personal expression, between 
objectivity and subjectivity, between the artist 
and the viewer. The Sheldon Memorial Art 
Gallery and Sculpture Garden is pleased to 
present Judith Burton: Visual Nuances, a solo 
exhibition featuring twenty-four paintings and 
two monotypes by an important Nebraska 
artist whose aesthetic expression succeeds in 
celebrating these many tensions and formal 
subtleties that are such an imporant part of our 
visual arts tradition. 
However, much attention-perhaps too 
much attention-has been paid by the contem-
porary artworld to works of art that have tried 
to "resolve" these tensions and subtleties. 
Some contemporary art screams or shouts its 
meaning, intimidating the viewer into a passive 
"receptive" role for fear that the artist's message 
won't be heard. Others sit mute, begging (or 
daring) the viewer to speak on behalf of them. 
In refreshing contrast, Burton's work 
celebrates the tensions, subtleties, the "visual 
nuances" that lie at the core of the unique act 
of image making. Further, Burton's visual 
imagery is a whisper, the still small voice of 
the aesthetic in a visual culture that is often 
drowned out in the sea of aesthetic screaming 
or amid the "sophisticated" white noise or 
cynical silence of art institutional brinkmanship. 
Burton's "visual nuances," are radical 
departures from a visual culture that saturates 
our lives and systematically trains us to crave 
an aesthetic of either excessive passivity or 
aggression. Burton's pictures, however, ask 
much from us as viewers. They require that 
we learn again to appreciate visual nuances, 
I I 
• " 
r .. r 
fig. 3, Four Sided Grater, 1999, oil on paper, Courtesy of the artist 
nuances that take patience to excavate and 
then to enjoy. Burton's pictures also require 
sustained contemplation and a visual attention 
span that is measured in many minutes rather 
than a few fragmented milliseconds. These 
paintings also require that we recognize them 
as products of an artist's unique aesthetic 
intention and thus are willing to enter a visual 
dialogue with them. These subtle pictures ask 
that we interact with them while at the same 
time respecting their autonomy as products of 
another's creativity, not mass-produced for the 
purpose of glorifying the viewer's insatiable 
lust for consumption. They therefore ask us 
to respect the integrity of the artist as a creative 
human being. In addition, these paintings ask 
that we appreciate them as both "representa-
tions of" a world "out there" and as 
autonomous objects consisting of only paint 
applied to canvas or paper. 
Burton's pictures also ask that we re-learn 
to appreciate the little things in life. One is 
tempted to call these paintings "naive." But 
the "naivete" is not a sophisticated stylistic 
tool to appear unsophisticated. It is the naive, 
and perhaps even scandalous assertion, that 
in this society in which we live, one can still 
enjoy looking at the "little things." Society 
certainly sees this as naive, as quaint, hopelessly 
idealistic. But Burton reveals that our culture 
needs to look at the world and all that is in it 
in a fresh way, not as objects for "use," as 
"means to an end," or as products to be 
consumed, but to respect, even celebrate, the 
incidental objects around us, objects we take 
for granted, but objects that shape our physical 
environments. In this way, Burton's paintings 
are naive. It is a naivete, an innocence, that, 
as absurd as it seems to our culture, needs to 
be recovered. As the philosopher Nicholas 
Wol terstorff argued in his book Art in Action, 
the visual arts can be-and have been-used for 
many different and even contradictory 
purposes by many different communities and 
cultures. l Burton's pictures serve the purpose 
of celebrating life's visual subtleties, a celebra-
tion lost in a generation reared on extremes, 
whether in the visual, moral, social, or political 
arenas. 
Burton's pictures reaffirm in paint what 
environmental and social psychologists have 
often argued, that the aesthetic plays a found-
ational role as we constitute our environments, 
as we "environ," that is, actively create and 
sustain our environments, both psychic and 
concrete, conceptual and physical. The subjects 
of Burton's pictures included in this exhibition 
are found in the artist's studio, her own intimate 
environment, an environment that she has 
shaped. In spite of her resistance to the strong 
temptation to imbue them with "deep" 
symbolic meaning, these objects are profoundly 
meaningful. They make up Burton's aesthetic 
environment, her lived environment as she 
paints, listens to music, or drinks coffee. 
Because of the important role that these objects 
play in her environment, several of them have 
been exhibited along with the paintings that 
depict them. This exercise, which brings a part 
of Burton's studio environment into the 
exhibition space, is not intended to show how 
"accurate" or "realistic" the artist's depictions 
are. Rather, it is to affirm the concreteness of 
Burton's images, their origins in a reality "out 
there" with which the artist interacts creatively. 
She "finds" these objects, brings them to her 
studio, and they assume a role in her environ-
ment. And as she paints them she is, in effect, 
affirming and even celebrating, her environ-
ment, investing these banal objects with a most 
unexpected dignity, integrity, and even monu-
mentality. 
For example, in Egg (fig. 1), Burton has 
not represented a real egg, an object that does 
possess iconographic meaning in the visual 
arts, a meaning associated with the origins of 
life, but is rather simply one of those mass-
produced knickknacks intended to adorn (or 
clutter) shelves, window sills, or other domestic 
locations. But Burton isolates it-lavishing 
aesthetic attention on it-as she works the 
pictorial surface to create nuances of color and 
texture that are evidence of her deep involve-
ment with the pictorial surface. In Giant Bottle 
(fig. 2) Burton offers an overhead view of a 
common bottle that achieves a kind of 
monumentality that is not only striking but 
even humorous, for with the painting's prosaic 
title she removes any lingering desires on the 
viewer's part to invoke symbolic or allegorical 
meaning. In her hands, the bottle is just "a 
giant bottle," nothing more, but also, nothing 
less. And it acquires dignity because it has 
assumed a place in Burton's environment. This 
humorous monumentality is also evidenced 
in Four Sided Grater (fig. 3), in which a cheese 
grater is given epic proportions, looming on 
the surface as a gloriously sublime structure. 
However, it would be a mistake to 
categorize Burton's pictures as merely represen-
tational and their significance based solely on 
their mimetic qualities. Burton's pictures are 
representational and abstract. In fact, it is their 
abstractness that is most obvious at first glance. 
In Scoop (fig. 4), for example, the solidity of the 
scoop is essentially dissolved into the two-
dimensional flatness of the pictorial surface; 
the scoop assumes an almost purely formal 
quality. In addition, Burton displays an 
interesting dichotomy that increases the 
pictorial tension; that is, she contrasts-or 
pits-the simple and concise lines that depict 
the scoop and, in addition, organize the 
pictorial surface with the intensely worked-
over, fussed with, and even obsessively marked 
surface. This supposed "background" in fact 
forces itself into the foreground and vies with 
the scoop for our attention. It is this competi-
tion between the object and its background, 
between representation and abstraction, 
between the illusion of three dimensions and 
the two-dimensional concreteness of the 
pictorial surface that activates Burton's pictures, 
that makes them crackle with aesthetic tension. 
The abstract character of Burton's work also is 
found in Same But Different (fig. 5), which 
depicts a rusty piece of junk metal that, with 
the form repeated in successive rows across 
the pictorial surface, become formal receptacles 
of Burton's subtle manipulations and changes, 
giving each form an individual identity, while 
at the same time maintaining and, in fact, 
increasing, the abstractness of the pattern. 
This is, to my mind, what Burton's pictures 
are "about," if they are "about" anything. We 
miss her larger and more relevant aesthetic 
point if we get stuck on evaluating how well 
Burton "depicts" her subjects, whether it be 
the cigar box, the bottle, the tape measure, or 
the spoon. These paintings celebrate not only 
the world of objects, but the world created by 
the artist, her own use of the aesthetic in 
appreciating, celebrating, and engaging with 
her world on the most concrete and personal 
of levels, through the objects with which she 
surrounds herself. "The things of the world," 
as the philosopher Hannah Arendt observed, 
"have the function of stabilizing human 
life .... " They do this, Arendt argues, because 
of their "objectivity." "[A]gainst the subjectivity 
of men stands the objectivity of the man-made 
world .... ,,2 Cultural anthropologist Mihaly 
Cslkszentmihalyl has gone so far as to argue 
that "things stabilize our sense of who we are; 
they give a permanent shape to our views of 
ourselves that otherwise would qUickly 
dissolve in the flux of consciousness."3 Burton's 
pictures function as the aesthetic residue of 
her deep interaction with the "things of the 
world." Not only do Burton's pictures celebrate 
the "things of the world," they also celebrate 
the individual creativity of the one interacting 
with them. Burton's pictures assert and reassert 
her own subjectivity, her own creativity, her 
own ability to engage deeply with the world 
around her through the aesthetic in a manner 
reminiscent of philosopher Martin Heidegger's 
view that artmaking was, in essence, world 
making. ,,4 
Burton's pictures are not solipsistic. They 
encourage the viewer to participate vicariously 
in her delight in these objects, not simply 
display "her experience." We take our own 
pleasure in tracing Burton's delicate contours, 
absorbing her deeply incised and intensely 
worked-over surfaces; a pleasure that leads to 
the appreciation of the subtleties, the "visual 
nuances" of the world, both the natural and 
the created world. Burton's pictures remind 
us of the pleasures of seeing, not just in 
glimpsing fragments, but in the deep, sustained 
attention that our society so desperately needs. 
This is Burton's unique contribution. 
Daniel A. Siedell 
Curator/Interim Director 
1. Nicholas Wolterstorlf, Art in Action (Grand Rapids, 
MI: Eerdmans, 1980). 
2. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press, 1958), 137. 
3. Mihaly Cslkszentmihalyl, "Why We Need Things," 
in S. Lubar and w.o. Kingery, eds. History from 
Things: Essays on Material Culture (Washington DC: 
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 23. 
4. A. Hofstadter, Poetry, Language, Thought, by Martin 
Heidegger (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). 
fig. 2, Giant Bott/e, 1999, 
oil on paper, 
Courtesy of the artist 
fig. 5, Same But Different, 1998, 
oil on paper, 
Courtesy of the artist 
, 
EXHIBITION CHECKLIST 
1. GREEN BOWL 
1990, oil on paper 
22 x 30 in. 
Courtesy of Lynne Boyer 
2. STILL LIFE WITH PLUMS 
1990, oil on canvas 
31x52in. 
Courtesy of F. Woods and Marcia Haecker 
3. RECTANGLE 
1993, oil on canvas 
81/4x81/4 
Courtesy of Jon and Margaret Nelson 
4. ELEVATOR TOP II 
1995, oil on paper 
24 x 32 in. 
Courtesy of Clay and Beth Smith 
5. CIGAR BOXES AND BLACK EGG 
1996, oil and mixed media on canvas 
16 x 14 in. 
Courtesy of Ron and Sharon Gustafson 
6. CARROT 
1994, oil on paper 
153/8 x 14 3/8 in. 
Courtesy of the Haydon Gallery 
7. HAY BALES I 
1998, oil on paper 
323/8 x 26 3/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
8. SAME BUT DIFFERENT 
1998, oil on paper 
323/8 x 26 3/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
9. CHANNEL 
1999, oil on canvas 
20 x 20 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
10. TWENTY VASES ON TWENTY 
TABLES 
1999, oil on canvas 
20 x 20 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
11. HOUSE AND SKY 
1999, oil on masonite 
11 7/8 x 11 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
12. FOUR SIDED GRATER 
1999, oil on paper 
215/8 x 175/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
13. EGG 
1999, oil on masonite 
12 7/8 x 9 7/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
14. GIANT BOTTLE 
1999, oil on paper 
263/8 x 253/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
15. PINK 
1999, oil on masonite 
127/8 X 97/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
All photographs courtesy of John Spence. 
16. SCOOP 
1999, oil on masonite 
127/8 x 9 7/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
17. MICKEY 
1994, oil on canvas 
101/2 x 91/2 in. 
Courtesy of John and Leigh Hoppe Jr. 
18. UNTITLED 
1992, oil on canvas 
48 x 36 in. 
Courtesy of Keith Jacobshagen and 
Paula Day 
19. CIGAR BOX 
1998, oil on canvas 
59 x 47 in. 
Courtesy of anonymous lender 
20. HAY BALES II 
1998, oil on canvas 
661/2 x 661/2 in. 
Courtesy of anonymous lender 
21. ISLANDS 
1999, oil on canvas 
20 x 20 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
22. ASSORTMENT 
1999, oil on canvas 
48 x 48 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
23. TOP WEIGHT 
1990, monotype 
323/8 x 26 3/8 in. 
Courtesty of the artist 
24. FOR CONFINEMENT 
1999, monotype 
25 x 30 7/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
25. STANLEY 
1999, oil on masonite 
127/8 x 97/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
26. GLASS AND SPOON 
1999, oil on masonite 
127/8 x 97/8 in. 
Courtesy of the artist 
Cover illustration: fig. 1, Egg, 1999, oil on 
masonite, Courtesy of the artist 
~ 
Nebraska ARTS COUNCIL 
Sheldon Solo is an ongoing series 
of one-person exhibitions by 
nationally-recognized 
contemporary artists. As a 
museum of twentieth-century 
American art, the Sheldon 
Memorial Art Gallery recognizes 
its responsibility to present both a 
historical perspective and the art 
of our time. Each Sheldon Solo 
exhibition assesses the work of an 
artist who has contributed to the 
spectrum of American art, and 
provides an important forum for 
the understanding of contemporary 
art issues. 
The Sheldon Solo series is 
supported in part by the Nebraska 
Art Association, an independent 
charitable organization dedicated 
to the advancement of the visual 
arts in Nebraska through 
educational and cultural 
enrichment opportunities. 
Nebraska Art Association programs 
are supported in part by a Basic 
Support Grant from the Nebraska 
Arts Council, a State agency. 
Additional general operating 
support is provided to the Sheldon 
Memorial Art Gallery by the 
Institute of Museum and Library 
Services, a federal agency that 
fosters innovation, leadership, and 
a lifetime of learning. Sheldon 
Gallery is fully accredited by the 
American Association of Museums. 
We would like to express our 
thanks to George W. Neubert, 
former director of the Sheldon 
Art Gallery, whose sustained 
interest in and commitment to 
Judith Burton's work led him 
to organize this solo exhibition 
before his departure. 
DOD DOD 
SHE L DON 
MEMORIAL ART GALLERY and SCULPTURE GARDEN 
12th and R Street University of Nebraska-Lincoln f 68588-0300 
NEBRASKA ART ASSOCIATION 


Judith Burton: Visual Nuances

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications Sheldon Museum of Art 2000 Judith Burton: Visual Nuances Daniel A. Siedell Curator at Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska- Lincoln Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs  Part of the Art and Design Commons Siedell, Daniel A., "Judith Burton: Visual Nuances" (2000). Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications. 42. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/sheldonpubs/42 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Sheldon Museum of Art at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sheldon Museum of Art Catalogues and Publications by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. s H E L D o N SHELDON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY AND SCULPTURE GARDEN Judith Burton: Visual Nuances November 24, 1999-January 16, 2000 UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN Judith Burton: ViSlJal Nuances fig. 4, Scoop, 1999, oil on masonite, Courtesy of the artist The history and development of the pictorial tradition in the West is punctuated by many formal and conceptual tensions, among them the tension between representation and abstraction, between mimesis and personal expression, between objectivity and subjectivity, between the artist and the viewer. The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden is pleased to present Judith Burton: Visual Nuances, a solo exhibition featuring twenty-four paintings and two monotypes by an important Nebraska artist whose aesthetic expression succeeds in celebrating these many tensions and formal subtleties that are such an imporant part of our visual arts tradition. However, much attention-perhaps too much attention-has been paid by the contem-porary artworld to works of art that have tried to "resolve" these tensions and subtleties. Some contemporary art screams or shouts its meaning, intimidating the viewer into a passive "receptive" role for fear that the artist's message won't be heard. Others sit mute, begging (or daring) the viewer to speak on behalf of them. In refreshing contrast, Burton's work celebrates the tensions, subtleties, the "visual nuances" that lie at the core of the unique act of image making. Further, Burton's visual imagery is a whisper, the still small voice of the aesthetic in a visual culture that is often drowned out in the sea of aesthetic screaming or amid the "sophisticated" white noise or cynical silence of art institutional brinkmanship. Burton's "visual nuances," are radical departures from a visual culture that saturates our lives and systematically trains us to crave an aesthetic of either excessive passivity or aggression. Burton's pictures, however, ask much from us as viewers. They require that we learn again to appreciate visual nuances, I I • " r .. r fig. 3, Four Sided Grater, 1999, oil on paper, Courtesy of the artist nuances that take patience to excavate and then to enjoy. Burton's pictures also require sustained contemplation and a visual attention span that is measured in many minutes rather than a few fragmented milliseconds. These paintings also require that we recognize them as products of an artist's unique aesthetic intention and thus are willing to enter a visual dialogue with them. These subtle pictures ask that we interact with them while at the same time respecting their autonomy as products of another's creativity, not mass-produced for the purpose of glorifying the viewer's insatiable lust for consumption. They therefore ask us to respect the integrity of the artist as a creative human being. In addition, these paintings ask that we appreciate them as both "representa-tions of" a world "out there" and as autonomous objects consisting of only paint applied to canvas or paper. Burton's pictures also ask that we re-learn to appreciate the little things in life. One is tempted to call these paintings "naive." But the "naivete" is not a sophisticated stylistic tool to appear unsophisticated. It is the naive, and perhaps even scandalous assertion, that in this society in which we live, one can still enjoy looking at the "little things." Society certainly sees this as naive, as quaint, hopelessly idealistic. But Burton reveals that our culture needs to look at the world and all that is in it in a fresh way, not as objects for "use," as "means to an end," or as products to be consumed, but to respect, even celebrate, the incidental objects around us, objects we take for granted, but objects that shape our physical environments. In this way, Burton's paintings are naive. It is a naivete, an innocence, that, as absurd as it seems to our culture, needs to be recovered. As the philosopher Nicholas Wol terstorff argued in his book Art in Action, the visual arts can be-and have been-used for many different and even contradictory purposes by many different communities and cultures. l Burton's pictures serve the purpose of celebrating life's visual subtleties, a celebra-tion lost in a generation reared on extremes, whether in the visual, moral, social, or political arenas. Burton's pictures reaffirm in paint what environmental and social psychologists have often argued, that the aesthetic plays a found-ational role as we constitute our environments, as we "environ," that is, actively create and sustain our environments, both psychic and concrete, conceptual and physical. The subjects of Burton's pictures included in this exhibition are found in the artist's studio, her own intimate environment, an environment that she has shaped. In spite of her resistance to the strong temptation to imbue them with "deep" symbolic meaning, these objects are profoundly meaningful. They make up Burton's aesthetic environment, her lived environment as she paints, listens to music, or drinks coffee. Because of the important role that these objects play in her environment, several of them have been exhibited along with the paintings that depict them. This exercise, which brings a part of Burton's studio environment into the exhibition space, is not intended to show how "accurate" or "realistic" the artist's depictions are. Rather, it is to affirm the concreteness of Burton's images, their origins in a reality "out there" with which the artist interacts creatively. She "finds" these objects, brings them to her studio, and they assume a role in her environ-ment. And as she paints them she is, in effect, affirming and even celebrating, her environ-ment, investing these banal objects with a most unexpected dignity, integrity, and even monu-mentality. For example, in Egg (fig. 1), Burton has not represented a real egg, an object that does possess iconographic meaning in the visual arts, a meaning associated with the origins of life, but is rather simply one of those mass-produced knickknacks intended to adorn (or clutter) shelves, window sills, or other domestic locations. But Burton isolates it-lavishing aesthetic attention on it-as she works the pictorial surface to create nuances of color and texture that are evidence of her deep involve-ment with the pictorial surface. In Giant Bottle (fig. 2) Burton offers an overhead view of a common bottle that achieves a kind of monumentality that is not only striking but even humorous, for with the painting's prosaic title she removes any lingering desires on the viewer's part to invoke symbolic or allegorical meaning. In her hands, the bottle is just "a giant bottle," nothing more, but also, nothing less. And it acquires dignity because it has assumed a place in Burton's environment. This humorous monumentality is also evidenced in Four Sided Grater (fig. 3), in which a cheese grater is given epic proportions, looming on the surface as a gloriously sublime structure. However, it would be a mistake to categorize Burton's pictures as merely represen-tational and their significance based solely on their mimetic qualities. Burton's pictures are representational and abstract. In fact, it is their abstractness that is most obvious at first glance. In Scoop (fig. 4), for example, the solidity of the scoop is essentially dissolved into the two-dimensional flatness of the pictorial surface; the scoop assumes an almost purely formal quality. In addition, Burton displays an interesting dichotomy that increases the pictorial tension; that is, she contrasts-or pits-the simple and concise lines that depict the scoop and, in addition, organize the pictorial surface with the intensely worked-over, fussed with, and even obsessively marked surface. This supposed "background" in fact forces itself into the foreground and vies with the scoop for our attention. It is this competi-tion between the object and its background, between representation and abstraction, between the illusion of three dimensions and the two-dimensional concreteness of the pictorial surface that activates Burton's pictures, that makes them crackle with aesthetic tension. The abstract character of Burton's work also is found in Same But Different (fig. 5), which depicts a rusty piece of junk metal that, with the form repeated in successive rows across the pictorial surface, become formal receptacles of Burton's subtle manipulations and changes, giving each form an individual identity, while at the same time maintaining and, in fact, increasing, the abstractness of the pattern. This is, to my mind, what Burton's pictures are "about," if they are "about" anything. We miss her larger and more relevant aesthetic point if we get stuck on evaluating how well Burton "depicts" her subjects, whether it be the cigar box, the bottle, the tape measure, or the spoon. These paintings celebrate not only the world of objects, but the world created by the artist, her own use of the aesthetic in appreciating, celebrating, and engaging with her world on the most concrete and personal of levels, through the objects with which she surrounds herself. "The things of the world," as the philosopher Hannah Arendt observed, "have the function of stabilizing human life .... " They do this, Arendt argues, because of their "objectivity." "[A]gainst the subjectivity of men stands the objectivity of the man-made world .... ,,2 Cultural anthropologist Mihaly Cslkszentmihalyl has gone so far as to argue that "things stabilize our sense of who we are; they give a permanent shape to our views of ourselves that otherwise would qUickly dissolve in the flux of consciousness."3 Burton's pictures function as the aesthetic residue of her deep interaction with the "things of the world." Not only do Burton's pictures celebrate the "things of the world," they also celebrate the individual creativity of the one interacting with them. Burton's pictures assert and reassert her own subjectivity, her own creativity, her own ability to engage deeply with the world around her through the aesthetic in a manner reminiscent of philosopher Martin Heidegger's view that artmaking was, in essence, world making. ,,4 Burton's pictures are not solipsistic. They encourage the viewer to participate vicariously in her delight in these objects, not simply display "her experience." We take our own pleasure in tracing Burton's delicate contours, absorbing her deeply incised and intensely worked-over surfaces; a pleasure that leads to the appreciation of the subtleties, the "visual nuances" of the world, both the natural and the created world. Burton's pictures remind us of the pleasures of seeing, not just in glimpsing fragments, but in the deep, sustained attention that our society so desperately needs. This is Burton's unique contribution. Daniel A. Siedell Curator/Interim Director 1. Nicholas Wolterstorlf, Art in Action (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980). 2. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958), 137. 3. Mihaly Cslkszentmihalyl, "Why We Need Things," in S. Lubar and w.o. Kingery, eds. History from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 23. 4. A. Hofstadter, Poetry, Language, Thought, by Martin Heidegger (New York: Harper and Row, 1971). fig. 2, Giant Bott/e, 1999, oil on paper, Courtesy of the artist fig. 5, Same But Different, 1998, oil on paper, Courtesy of the artist , EXHIBITION CHECKLIST 1. GREEN BOWL 1990, oil on paper 22 x 30 in. Courtesy of Lynne Boyer 2. STILL LIFE WITH PLUMS 1990, oil on canvas 31x52in. Courtesy of F. Woods and Marcia Haecker 3. RECTANGLE 1993, oil on canvas 81/4x81/4 Courtesy of Jon and Margaret Nelson 4. ELEVATOR TOP II 1995, oil on paper 24 x 32 in. Courtesy of Clay and Beth Smith 5. CIGAR BOXES AND BLACK EGG 1996, oil and mixed media on canvas 16 x 14 in. Courtesy of Ron and Sharon Gustafson 6. CARROT 1994, oil on paper 153/8 x 14 3/8 in. Courtesy of the Haydon Gallery 7. HAY BALES I 1998, oil on paper 323/8 x 26 3/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 8. SAME BUT DIFFERENT 1998, oil on paper 323/8 x 26 3/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 9. CHANNEL 1999, oil on canvas 20 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist 10. TWENTY VASES ON TWENTY TABLES 1999, oil on canvas 20 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist 11. HOUSE AND SKY 1999, oil on masonite 11 7/8 x 11 in. Courtesy of the artist 12. FOUR SIDED GRATER 1999, oil on paper 215/8 x 175/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 13. EGG 1999, oil on masonite 12 7/8 x 9 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 14. GIANT BOTTLE 1999, oil on paper 263/8 x 253/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 15. PINK 1999, oil on masonite 127/8 X 97/8 in. Courtesy of the artist All photographs courtesy of John Spence. 16. SCOOP 1999, oil on masonite 127/8 x 9 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 17. MICKEY 1994, oil on canvas 101/2 x 91/2 in. Courtesy of John and Leigh Hoppe Jr. 18. UNTITLED 1992, oil on canvas 48 x 36 in. Courtesy of Keith Jacobshagen and Paula Day 19. CIGAR BOX 1998, oil on canvas 59 x 47 in. Courtesy of anonymous lender 20. HAY BALES II 1998, oil on canvas 661/2 x 661/2 in. Courtesy of anonymous lender 21. ISLANDS 1999, oil on canvas 20 x 20 in. Courtesy of the artist 22. ASSORTMENT 1999, oil on canvas 48 x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist 23. TOP WEIGHT 1990, monotype 323/8 x 26 3/8 in. Courtesty of the artist 24. FOR CONFINEMENT 1999, monotype 25 x 30 7/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 25. STANLEY 1999, oil on masonite 127/8 x 97/8 in. Courtesy of the artist 26. GLASS AND SPOON 1999, oil on masonite 127/8 x 97/8 in. Courtesy of the artist Cover illustration: fig. 1, Egg, 1999, oil on masonite, Courtesy of the artist ~ Nebraska ARTS COUNCIL Sheldon Solo is an ongoing series of one-person exhibitions by nationally-recognized contemporary artists. As a museum of twentieth-century American art, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery recognizes its responsibility to present both a historical perspective and the art of our time. Each Sheldon Solo exhibition assesses the work of an artist who has contributed to the spectrum of American art, and provides an important forum for the understanding of contemporary art issues. The Sheldon Solo series is supported in part by the Nebraska Art Association, an independent charitable organization dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts in Nebraska through educational and cultural enrichment opportunities. Nebraska Art Association programs are supported in part by a Basic Support Grant from the Nebraska Arts Council, a State agency. Additional general operating support is provided to the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency that fosters innovation, leadership, and a lifetime of learning. Sheldon Gallery is fully accredited by the American Association of Museums. We would like to express our thanks to George W. Neubert, former director of the Sheldon Art Gallery, whose sustained interest in and commitment to Judith Burton's work led him to organize this solo exhibition before his departure. DOD DOD SHE L DON MEMORIAL ART GALLERY and SCULPTURE GARDEN 12th and R Street University of Nebraska-Lincoln f 68588-0300 NEBRASKA ART ASSOCIATION 

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Judith Burton: Visual Nuances

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