Soft Opening has announced the representation of Joanne Burke.
With research located in hydrofeminism, a posthuman feminist phenomenology that understands the body as essentially linked to the natural world, London-based British artist Burke similarly sees water as an infinite element, a mercurial, nonphysical essence that resists representation or definition. Burke’s process begins with what was initially an accidental adoption of a forbidden 17th century divination practice known as “Hydromancy”, involving the dispersal of molten wax into bodies of cold water, allowing unpredictable shapes and textures to form and be formed by their liquid surroundings. These initial water casts invariably become the starting point for Burke’s metallic sculptures, which appropriate and combine historical craft techniques including model-making, carpentry, costuming, weaving, basketry and jewellery-making. Moulding her intricate and precarious wax forms using these techniques prior to casting, Burke excavates and utilises processes and approaches from the past for their simplicity and primitive logic. Burke’s material transformations—from wax to water, to fire and finally to metal—recall the transmutations of matter associated with alchemical processes, a medieval chemistry often associated with sorcery and magical practices. For the artist, sculpture itself is a kind of alchemy, a divination of sorts, wherein material curiosity leads to a process of divining an object or form into being. Collaging elements together intuitively into surreal compositions, Burke decidedly interrupts any familiar—organic or inorganic— features to instead prioritise frustration, unexpectedness and the awkward. This choice to resist, undo and abstract recognisability within her forms, renders them intangible and untameable, much like the water they were first imagined within. Existing in this uncanny space between unfamiliarity and the literal representation of an object, Burke’s sculptures locate between past and future, becoming relics at once placeless and timeless.
About the artist
Joanne Burke (b.1982, United Kingdom) lives and works in London, UK. Her work will soon be included in Marfa’ 10, at Marfa’, Beirut (2025). The artist’s most recent solo exhibition Oes with works like Esses was held at Soft Opening, London (2025). Selected exhibitions include One for sorrow, two for joy too, curated by Lauren Auder and Tosia Leniarska for Kaunas Biennal, Kaunas (2025); Correspondences, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles (2025), L’ACCROCCO, Ermes Ermes, Rome (2025); A Six Boed Poynt in a Wave, ADZ, Lisbon (2023); Curtains, Bibeau Kreuger, New York (2023); BLISS POOL, Space K Seoul; Donna Huanca performance, Seoul (2023); BIJOUX, Fitzpatrick Gallery, Los Angeles (2022); The Essential Goods Show, Fisher Parrish, New York (2020); A Ten Boed Poynt In A Wave, Operativa Arte Rome, Rome (2019); Several Walls, Swiss Institute Rome, Rome (2019).
