Nature + Nurture = The Art of Steve Burzynski

 It was a cool and windy Tuesday night on South Beach where Piola was hosting the opening of Steve Burzynski’s solo exhibition. The city’s bronzed residents were bundled up and anxious to enter the warm Italian restaurant to enjoy the delicious food and Burzynski’s dynamic collection of paintings. Although this young artist is a recent transplant from the Mid-West he’s been sprouting roots like he’s resided here for years.

Tracing his roots, I learned that Steve has a background in Landscape Architecture. This multidimensional artist draws on his love of nature and often incorporates it into his paintings. However, Burzynski does not create Guy Harvey type caricatures of game fish nor does he paint Bob Ross landscapes. His artistic mark reaches so far out of the box that the viewer is compelled to carefully look at the canvas to fully grasp the image and maybe scratch the surface of the concept. His complex painting style is complemented by colorful layers, which are always bold and push his work’s charm to the next level.

Steve is gaining momentum locally with this solo exhibition, his involvement with Simpson Park Hammock, and recently being accepted as a studio artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex. He’s on his way to becoming one of Miami’s household names. If you missed the opening night don’t fret because Piola will be displaying his collection until May 31 and I strongly recommend you take the time to see it for yourself.

I met Steve for lunch one afternoon to talk about his background, music, and current projects.

Steve I: Where do you come from and when did you arrive in Miami?

Steve B: I’m originally from Wisconsin, that’s where I was born and I went to school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was there for about 6 years and then I moved to Miami July of 2008.

SI: How would you compare our local art scene to your scene back home?

SB: Here it’s more concentrated in an area and a bit more organized as far as getting the community and local businesses involved. Obviously there’s Art Basel which is a huge venue that tops everything off. Minneapolis has a decent art and huge music scene but it would be nice to see the same level of organization and involvement that you see here.

SI: Every artist has a beginning point to their artistic career. In a recent conversation you mentioned you had a mentor, how did he impact your life and when did this encounter occur?

SB: My parents have always supported me, when I was younger and I was progressing my parents knew I had some sort of talent. In our community there was this guy, Doc. who was my doctor and a friend of the family, and my dad brought me to his place once and we showed him some of my work. From there he decided, this kid’s got some talent and I want to help him develop it, so he took me under his wing. He really influenced me as far as my style, the speed at which I work, and the way I started to see the world at that young age in a small town; he got me really into it.

SI: In what aspect did he influence you, was it your painting?

SB: Yeah well first he had to teach me that you have to be able to draw so it was draw draw draw. Then he taught me how to paint with oil because I really wanted to start that, so I learned all the basics and progressed from there. He would do a painting and then have me do the same painting which was pretty crazy because it was a lot to live up to, but he would paint a photograph and I would work along side of him and I was learning his technique. That may be the best way to learn I guess, doing it along side of someone.

SI: So how did you get into these other art forms like sculpting and landscape architecture, I mean that’s pretty awesome and different from paintings in so many ways.

SB: Honestly Doc got me into the sculpting aspect as well. He did a lot of wood sculpture and so I saw some of his stuff and I said I want to do that too. I looked up to him and wanted to do what he did and basically follow in his foot steps. It was always on large pieces of wood, sometimes as big as me.

As far as landscape architecture, I decided I wanted to do something art related for an occupation when I was in high school. I always loved the outdoors growing up and I had a back yard that was wooded, which was great to grow up in because nature was my play ground. I wanted to do something with the outdoors and something that involved art so landscape architecture naturally served both of those things.

SI: You are so damn prolific, how do you decide which medium you’re going to work on when you start a new project?

SB: It kind of comes to me; it depends on what I might have commissioned. Sometimes I have a project that comes up through a friend or someone that I collaborate with, so we have set goals and I might want to use wood or stone on that project. As far as painting goes that’s a thing I’m doing on the side as another outlet. So when I’m thinking about ideas or the inspiration for my works I use my keen visualize sense to pick up on things, it’s my environment that inspires me and then I develop ideas in a sketch book and refer back to that as my ammunition. When I do a painting I can look through my sketch book and say this is really cool and can do something related to that. It’s a matter of building things up over a course of time, it’s not magic.

SI: This next question is loosely related and refers to something we’ve talked about, as far as music what are your top three artists you turn to when you’re creating your paintings or wood work?

SB: You’re cornering me here. OK, guilty pleasure number one, I listen to a lot of Metallica. Down to their oldest stuff all the way up to their newest stuff. There's so many, let’s see two artists on my recent play list are The Hold Steady and Atmosphere.

SI: Really Metallica, that's cool. Yeah I've seen The Hold Steady around a lot lately.

SB: Yeah The Hold Steady are great they started out in Minneapolis and now their in New York. They get mentioned in Rolling Stone a lot, they're so damn good.

SI: What was your contribution to Simpson Park Hammock?

SB: I designed, constructed, and donated two benches to the park. They are more or less sculptural benches, created to emulate a fallen log in the forest. They are these large full scale full size logs and the largest piece I call the 111 Bench because its 111 inches long and weighs well over 600 pounds with these beautiful aluminum legs that are able to hold its weight but make it look like they’re floating there. It was a big project that was collaboration between designers, architects, landscape architects, and marketing people. It was a fun project to work on, I’m still working with those people and I look forward to continue to do that.

SI: You recently were accepted as a studio artist at the Bakehouse Art Complex. When do you move into your space and start working there? Also, can you tell us what the Bakehouse Art Complex is all about, for people that may not know?

SB: The Bakehouse Art Complex is a non-profit organization that has its facility inside an old industrial bakery. There are two stories to the building, it’s a huge place. They have outdoor studios and facilities and there’s shared work spaces like the photography lab. There are quite a few artists that have sectioned off studio spaces at a reduced rent. Initially you have to apply to get into the facility and if your approved you can have a studio there. Every second Friday of the month they have a big event with music, the artists are there to talk to, you can see there work, and there are a couple of galleries there as well. It’s really a great place. I hope to be moving in by mid-April and you should be able to come by and see me the second Friday of May.

SI: Well congratulations on being accepted and on your recent solo gig at Piola. I’d like to invite everyone to Piola to check out your collection and also to the Bakehouse Art Complex on the second Friday of May to see some of your new works. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.

SB: Absolutely, and there are a large number of exceptionally great artists that will be showing as well. Come out to see my stuff and their stuff because you won’t be disappointed, there will be something for everybody. Thank you.

Check out Steve Burzynski's Flicker album by clicking on Within Reach!

If You Enjoyed This Post, You May Also Like:

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• 7 questions with Lauren Wagner from the Bakehouse Art Complex
• Photo Journal : Art Basel Day 1 - SIN at the BAC November 29

Tags: Bakehouse Art Complex, Piola, Steve Burzynski

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 11th, 2009 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Art, Counter-Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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