Tim Burke

Artist Statement

I was born and raised in Detroit; my local family roots stretch back to my great-grandfather, who was renowned for his plaster work on Detroit’s emblematic Fox Theater. Burke’s father, too, was an artist – a blacksmith and a sculptor, and both the facility for technical work and a strong aesthetic sense were passed down to the young Tim. As a youth i studied drawing as well as metal fabrication and welding; later, i developed a substance abuse problem, but then rediscovered, art “saved my ass.” In 2000 i purchased my own home/studio – the Detroit Industrial Gallery – on Heidelberg Street in downtown Detroit. The seller, artist Carl Schneider, had had his own outside sculpture garden at that site, and as early as 1986 i would come to hang out with Schneider and his friend Jim Puntingham, another Detroit artist, to sketch and paint.
i built upon this historical background for the site, enjoying the liberties afforded that zone resulting from the early indifference of the municipal authorities as well as the adjacent work of neighbor (and sometime collaborator) Tyree Guyton to adorn and ornament his buildings and create a variety of site-specific sculpture that he displays in both interior and exterior spaces. Drawing on my metal fabrication/construction skills and working primarily with found objects that i have “rescued” from local historical buildings, i describe my art as having an essential element of “preservation with anthropological underpinnings.” These can take animal or human forms, but also include assemblage work in two- and three-dimensions that may be freestanding or affixed to the façades of his buildings (I owned five lots on Heidelberg Street). Many are painted in bright colors – as are the façades of the houses themselves. “I think there is a spirit or life with healing capabilities in all these relics when taking them from the discarded and giving them a new life….The process of renovation and preservation has a social and psychological and spiritual dimension to it, which always keeps me looking for more.” I memorialize the granite slabs that came from the rehabilitation of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the marble slab that once graced the steps of the Detroit College of Law, and metal components that were rescued from the demolition of the iconic Hudson’s Department Store, among those from many other distinguished architectural riches that are now just memories. Using recycled materials in this way “represents the possibility of rebirth from destruction,”
While concentrating on my artwork, i have also become very involved with local nonprofits and community projects, often donating discrete artworks to a variety of community fundraisers. Such as the matrix human services. The Make-A-Wish foundation to name a couple. I have worked as a substance abuse counselor and art therapist, in addition to such other jobs as display fabricator, I have exhibited and sold my sculptures, jewelry, and furniture at a variety of local venues, among them the Michigan Legacy Art Park.The Detroit institute of Arts Gift Shop. The Lafayette greens Garden Downtown. I was commissioned to make a bench for the Boll Family YMCA . I also restored the tiles on the Gratiot central market, after it was destroyed by fire in 1997. And, like many others in his troubled city, I am committed to the reality of a rebuilt and re-energized Detroit that honors its past while looking to its future.