west palm beach magazine
Ron Burkhardt, Palm Beach County. Burkhardt is a senior
class artist who has been exhibiting for many years both in
Palm Beach and in the Hamptons in Long Island, New York. He
graduated from Western Michigan University/Kalamazoo, and
later studied at the Art Students League of New York. He has
received over 200 awards for creative excellence and his work
has been recognized or honored by The United Nations, The
Art Directors Club of New York, Creativity, CLIOS, and the Palm
Springs International Film Festival among others. Burkhardt
has been featured in “Who’s Who in American Art,” ART and
Living Magazine, Gotham Magazine, Southampton Press,
Hamptons Magazine, and many more.
His art is centered around a concept he calls Notism. “Memory
is symbolic of primal loss; the fading reality of nature’s perfection”, he says.
“These hieroglyphic scribbles and scrawls manifest in a unique
pictorial language that reflects urgent efforts to preserve our
personal histories and rapidly fleeting histories”.
“Memory symbolizes our attempts to form a connection
between internal memory fragments and nature’s raw symbols,
textures and colors. The haunting pain of life passing by is laid
bare in textual writings that serve as metaphors for our past; a
visceral loss of the profound feelings that accompany our recall
of emotionally charged events. Notism (“NO-tizm”) also assaults information overload and helps us preserve the organic
power of communicating through intimate, hand-written
notes.”
Bruce Helander, artist and critic, writes: “Ron Burkhardt is a
consummate bi-coastal artist, who has a literal great
gift for calligraphic gab, expressed in symbols
and marks on canvas with an assemblage
style that’s truly unique. As a man
who has outworn and outpaced
many creative hats, most
notably as an inventive
advertising executive and
later as a painter of
subliminal communicative works, which
he invented over time
and labels “Notism,”
Ron takes the best of
his creative experiences and throws out
a curve ball at the
viewer that spins a
curious personal tale
with cryptic messages
incorporating his own
daily schedule wrapped
into one.”
Rendering by Ron Burkhardt
Rendering by Jennifer Chaparro
Jennifer Chaparro, Martin County. Chaparro is a painter and
muralist who often participates in street chalk art events and
even has a company, Amazing Street Painting that produces
street art events for towns and organizations to paint large murals in chalk. She is the Communications & Outreach Specialist
at Lighthouse Art Center.
She lives in Hobe Sound and recently completed work in
honor of her grandfather’s art. The project was to create a mural incorporating WAP projects in the style of posters of that era.
“My grandfather, Harry Stinson, actually created two large
public art projects under the FAP (Federal Art Program), so I
chose to use an image of him and his sculpture of Chief Blackhawk, which is in Iowa,” she says of the piece.
76
wpb magazine
- premier lifestyle magazine in west palm beach