Arlene Burke-Morgan
Contemporary Spirituality: The Work of Arlene Burke-Morgan
Arlene Burke-Morgan's early work was in clay sculpture and drawings in charcoal and pastel. In the mid-1980s she creates a series of masks whose scarified African features were pit fired and framed with feathers, raffia and twine or crowned with cowry shells. Flattened, human-shaped pieces of clay decorated with incised or pressed-in patterns formed bases for the masks. The sculptures that followed these in the early 1990s were tall, almost human sized, hollow built vessels whose phallic shapes prompted some art critics to compare them to ancient fertility gods and others to speak of cocoons and mummies. All those who wrote about them agreed that despite the sculptures' commanding physical presence, there was an undeniable spirituality about them. Commentators saw the sculptures as embodiments of primitive myth, totemic objects or spirit dwellings.
A life-long Christian, Burke-Morgan had a "born-again" experience in 1992 that made her see her work as not an end in itself but as a means to honor her most cherished values. In the previous year she had begun a series of drawings that featured glowing, ovular shapes; after her spiritual revival Burke-Morgan interpreted these "Circles of Light," as she called them, as symbols of God's pervasive and transforming love. Burke-Morgan's current work in painting, drawing and printmaking continues to focus on different aspects of biblical truth as it relates to her faith.
Arlene Burke-Morgan received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1972 and a Master of Fine Arts from East Carolina University in 1989. The artist has had solo exhibitions at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin (2005); Minnetonka Center for the Arts in Minnetonka, Minnesota (2002); Sue Jahn Arts International in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1995); Louisberg College in Louisberg, North Carolina (1993) and University of South Carolina at Spartanburg (1993).
Her awards include a McKnight Foundation Fellowship (1996), two North Carolina Arts Council fellowships (1996 and 1992) and a Southern Arts Federation/National Endowment for the Arts Regional Visual Arts Fellowship (1990). Burke-Morgan's work has been collected by the General Mills Corporation, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Home Savings and Loan Association, Washington, DC; Northern Telecom, Research Triangle Park, Raleigh, North Carolina; Springmills Incorporated, Fortmills, North Carolina and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Originally written and published by Littleton Studios.
