Flowers
When she transitioned to the brush it was an event, not just because her sculpture had become rarer still, but because it was a reshaping of her vision into a new medium. The landscapes and natural Australian forms of her past now took their shape in pigment and movements of color. Following on from the post-impressionists and the fine art tradition pursuing man and woman's search for beauty.
These new flower paintings, not unlike Bacon, are almost figurative pieces, the flower represented in its singularity as having a personality. When Van Gogh painted his flowers he was said to be painting at the manic rate of around three paintings a day, in all states of blossoming and wilting, on the edge of death, grasping onto the preciousness of life. The way these two artists see the world comes out in this same kind of paradox, this obsession with life and death fuels them to master their craft. For Burns these flowers have a life beyond a pleasing decorative object, but a part of this ecosystem, and more like something fundamental to our planet. That is both fragile, necessary and constantly changing.
