Lael Burns

Lael earned her BFA from Southern Methodist University and her MFA from the University of Iowa, both with a concentration in painting and minor concentrations in printmaking and sculpture. Exhibits of her work include a solo exhibition at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center along with various group shows. Her work has been written about in Peripheral Vision Arts Salon 2017, Studio Visit Magazine, Art Habens Contemporary Review, and on the International Fine Arts Fund and Create! Magazine blog. Lael has taught at the secondary and college level and currently lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with her husband and children.

Artist Statement

Drawing from my personal spiritual experiences and daily life as a mother, my work investigates the way domestic lace patterns and playful craft materials such as glitter and pompoms, can be manipulated with other fine art components as a means of exploring connections between the visceral, graphic, sublime, and carnal. The organic forms I describe are synthetically adorned organs, wombs, and hearts that display the external evidence of internal rebirth and are a physical manifestation of things intangible and infinite. I utilize material and sensory experience as a means to explore meaning. Material is worked until there is a shift into another realm: fabric becomes flesh, a sack, or an embryo, pins become candy, paint becomes a skin of strawberry ice cream or bubble gum, a pom pom becomes a microorganism or disease. My work strives to have a visceral presence by virtue of formal aesthetics, often riding the line between what is beautiful, grotesque and delicious. This speaks to various dichotomies I often reference in my work, such as light and dark, spirit and flesh. My Studio practice is broken into short, opportunistic, systematic bursts. As a mother, my mental space and daily routines are constantly interrupted into wonderful fragments. Both everyday life and art making are a process of creating order, beauty, and cleanliness out of chaos and raw human emotion.

CV

Education:
MFA, Painting and Drawing, Printmaking Minor, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2005.
MA, Painting and Drawing, Printmaking Minor, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, 2004.
BFA, Painting and Drawing, Printmaking Minor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, 2001.

Selected Exhibitions/Residencies:
-Chaos, Ro2 Art, Dallas, TX, 2018.
-Hot and Sweaty, 500X Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 2018.
-Dallas Art Dealers Association Spring Art Walk, LuminArte Gallery, Dallas, TX, March 31-April 14, 2018.
-Centering Abstraction, Gallery 414, Curator Barbara Koerble, Fort Worth, TX, January 27- February 25, 2018. 4 Person Group Show.
-First Come, First Serve, Fort Works Art, Fort Worth, TX, February-March, 2018.
-Trinity Alumni, TAG Gallery, Dallas, TX, 2017.
-These Are My Friends, Art Tooth Anniversary Show, Fort Worth, TX, 2017.
-MONA Biennial, Museum of Non-Visible Art - Skelf, London, 2017.
-The Minds Eye, Art 7 Gallery, Forth Worth, TX, 2017.
-Ro2ooth, Ro2 Art Gallery with Art Tooth, Dallas, TX, 2016.
-Unseen Realities, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth, TX, November-December 2016. Solo Exhibition.
-SIX, Art Room Gallery, Fort Worth, TX, 2016.
-Art in the Metroplex, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Curator Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Fort Worth, TX, 2016.
-ArtsGoggle, Gallery at Goggle, Fort Worth, TX, 2016.
-Studio Visit Magazine, Winter 2016 Edition, Curator: Jessica Roscio.
-FOUR, A Collaborative Exhibition between Art Tooth and Art Room Gallery, BRIK, Fort Worth, Texas, 2016.
-An Artist Residency in Motherhood, Hurst, Texas, July-December, 2016.
-Call of the Wild, Curated Group Show, TVAA Downtown Gallery, Dallas, TX, 2016.
-Hot and Sweaty, 500x Gallery, Dallas, Texas, 2016.
-Nature v.s. Nurture, Curated Group Show, Art 120, Taylor Art Guild, Taylor, Texas, 2015.
-TCA Alumni, Trinity Art Gallery, Curated Group Show, Addison, TX, 2012.
-Southwest Juried Art Show, Lafayette, LA. 2009.
-Texas and Neighbors, Curated Group Show, Irving, TX, 2008.
-The Moving Crew, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE, 2007.
-Faculty Show, Carillon Gallery, Tarrant County College, Fort Worth, TX, 2007.
-Graduate Painting, Marvin Cone and Eaton-Buchan Gallery, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Group Invitational, 2005.
-The Big Pink, Gauche Arthaus, Iowa City, IA, 2005.
-MFA Thesis Exhibition, University of Iowa Museum of Art, 2005.
-Domestic Entrails, Byron Burford Gallery, University of Iowa, Collaboration with Ryan Standfest, 2005.
-New Paintings, Byron Burford Gallery, University of Iowa, Solo Show, 2005.
-Calamities and Cradlesongs, Eve Drewlowe Gallery, University of Iowa, 2004.
-That Blob Can Dance!, The Coal Cellar, University of Iowa, Solo Show, 2004.
-New Paintings, Byron Burford Gallery, University of Iowa, Solo Show, 2003.
-Inside, Eve Drewlowe Gallery, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, Solo Show, 2003.
-B.F.A. Exhibition Show, Southern Methodist University, Pollock Gallery, 2001.
-New Paintings and Prints, Doolin Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Solo Show, 2001.
-New Paintings, Doolin Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Solo Show, 1999.
-Dallas Public Library, Downtown Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1997.
-Chase Bank Gallery, Dallas, TX, 1996.

Publications and Features:
-Voyage Dallas, July 11, 2018.
-Peripheral Vision Arts, Issue 7, Salon 17, Publication Fellowship Award. Curator: Georgia Erger.
-International Fine Arts Fund Blog, May 2016.
-Art Habens Contemporary Review, April 2016.
-Create! Magazine Blog, November 10 2016.
-Art and Seek, November 17 2016.
-Abstract Magazine, December 8 2016.
-The Tax Collection, December 13 2016.
-Four: A Collaborative Exhibition, Exhibition Catalog, 2016.
-Studio Visit Magazine, Winter Edition, 2017, Juror: Jessica Roscio.
-ArtsGoggle Program Catalog, 2016.
-Coe College News, October 3, 2005, Ceramics and Paintings at Coe Art Exhibit, 2005.
-The Daily Palette, Visual Arts in the Year of the Arts and Humanities. The University of Iowa, 2004.

Fellowships/Awards:
Mildred L Pelzer Trust Fellowship, University of Iowa, 2004-2005.
Chair’s Award, Southern Methodist University, 1997-2001.
Artistic Merit Scholarship Award, Southern Methodist University, 1997-2001. Meadows Foundation Scholarship Award, Southern Methodist University, 2001.

Public Collections:
The University of Iowa, School of Art and Art History, Thesis Rental Collection Iowa City, Iowa
Gauche Arthaus, Iowa City, Iowa
Deliverance Bible Church, Hurst, Texas.