Catherine Burgess: CORPUS

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Catherine Burgess, "CORPUS I," 2022

steel, 9 1/2" x 8 1/8" x 7 7/8"

We are pleased to welcome Catherine Burgess to Peter Robertson Gallery.

Join us for the Opening Reception of CORPUS: Thursday, September 22 from 7 - 9 pm RSVP

Ladies Night Thursday, September 29th from 7 - 9 pm Catherine Burgess and Kirsty Templeton Davidge will be in attendance. 

CORPUS — the main body or corporeal substance of a thing

CORPUS is a group of small sculptures created in the spring and summer of 2022.

In the past I have often worked by making pieces in series that share a common title as well as a similar starting point or format, allowing me to explore variations on an echoing theme. This way of working usually involves acquiring new, specific materials that are common to all the pieces.

My approach was different with CORPUS.

In my studio there are objects/things/materials that I have made or acquired over the 45-odd years I‘ve been making sculpture. I’ve now and then tried to incorporate them in my constructed pieces but without satisfactory resolution. There they have sat on dusty shelves or piled in corners, familiar remnants, waiting for their time.

Each of the pieces in the CORPUS series began with such an odd remnant, so each sculpture is individual and unlike the next. Most of them are comprised of only one other, more minor element, at most two. The effect of this simple combination elevates them from disparate remainders to whole works.

I wanted them to be elemental, unadorned, hence my choice of the title CORPUS. They are about their physical-ness, be it actual or illusory, and about how that physicality occupies the space around them. -CB August, 2022

Catherine Burgess is an Edmonton artist who has been working and exhibiting her sculpture for over forty years. She graduated from the University of Alberta Department of Fine Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1975. She has maintained a sculpture studio in Edmonton ever since, mounted over 25 solo exhibitions, and shown in over 60 group exhibitions in Canada, the US and England. She has completed 4 large-scale public sculpture commissions, two of which are in downtown Edmonton: The Big Rock, 1995 and Return, 2001. She has also collaborated with the artist group Tricycle on several large scale public sculpture installations in Sherwood Park, Alberta. Her work is represented in over 25 public collections across Canada.