fabric, paint; 60×66″

“My work investigates the fantasy of tropical space, contrasted with its messier reality, which I find equally romantic. The images are quasi-documentary, using a combination of my own photographs and appropriated images to depict an ‘elsewhere’ that is in fact no place at all. This piece appropriates a drawn form by Pablo Picasso, as a nod to the male gaze aimed towards the tropical. My work usually doesn’t contain the human figure, only its traces. During the time of Covid, this seems fitting. We are in a collective state of longing and absence.”

ARTIST BIO: Denise Burge is a professor of fine art at the University of Cincinnati. She works in a variety of media including drawing, film, installation, painting, and quilt making. Denise is currently focused on the subject of tropical landscape.