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Artist Statement:
K.R. Burde has been painting
scenes in and about New Jersey
for over 40 years.
Burde has studied at The Art
Students League and the New
School and is a graduate of
the Newark School of Fine and
Industrial Art, New Jersey
City University, and holds an
M.A. ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
1/7/2011 - 2/29/2011 Monmouth
Museum 32 Annual Juried
National Art Exhibition
Monmouth Museum on the Campus
of Brookdale Community College
Lincroft, NJ
http://monmouthmuseum.org/
12/1/2010 - 1/3/2011
Bernardsville Public Library
10 Year Retrospective Show
Bernardsvills Public Library,
1 Anderson Hill Rd.,
Bernardsville,NJ
...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
www.krburde.com
www.AbsoluteArts.com
http://www.absolutearts.com/por
tfolios/k/krburde
City Without Walls Gallery -
Newark, NJ
www.cwow.org
Newark Arts Council -Newark,
NJ
www.newarkarts.org...
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Collections:
Burde's work is in many
private collections in NJ, NY,
PA and FL.
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Commissions:
Christ Episcopal Church,
Belleville NJ - Door Mural
Belleville Municipal Stadium,
Belleville NJ - Belleville
Buccaneer Mural
One Nation United - Mural for
911
...
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Reviews for Kenneth Burde:
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Retiring Belleville teacher will remain on art scene
THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2011
BY MARIA KARIDIS
STAFF WRITER
BELLEVILLE TIMES
Lifelong Belleville resident Kenneth Burde — a professional artist, adjunct professor of fine art at Essex County Community College and newly-retired Belleville High School art teacher — has come a long way since drawing on the family television screen and getting locked inside School No. 5.
Kenneth Burde passes the time sketching at his Belleville home.
Among other recent accomplishments, Burde took his art on tour last year with the Newark-based gallery City Without Walls, had a painting selected for this year’s Monmouth Museum Annual Juried Art Exhibition, and will be featured in an upcoming art show via NJ Resources in Wall Township.
To boot, the shore aficionado just founded the Barnegat Bay Artists League (BarnegatBayArts.org), uniting visual and performing artists "to get recognition for the Bay," Burde said. Having spent childhood summers on the Barnegat Bay, and now owning a shore house in Ocean Gate, the area is very close to Burde’s heart. It has also been the inspiration for most of his art over the past few years.
Burde plans to organize art events through his newly-formed League, with proceeds supporting clean-up activities on the Bay.
"Nothing’s worth doing unless it’s a win-win for everybody," the artist said.
And, not only does Burde plan to stay active as an artist, but also as a teacher.
Although he completed his 34-year tenure in Belleville schools last week, Burde hopes to undertake a different form of teaching soon: via online video blogging.
"I think that’d be pretty cool," he said of the prospect, laptop computer in tow.
Burde will continue his professorship at ECC as well, he said, having taught there for 15 years already.
How does the Bellevilleite describe his artistic style?
"Representational," he answered, pointing to a soft water-color painting of ivy, on his living room wall, "…loose… just splashes," he added. "But I’m going through a reinvention period right now."
He is considering more abstract artistic undertakings for the near future, Burde explained. He hasn’t produced much in the genre since college, moving away from "really abstract art" because it’s "something anyone could do," Burde said, citing a four-year-girl who recently made headlines for her abstract paintings. However, with today’s art-buyers’ growing taste for the abstract, and with more free time to paint post-retirement, Burde said he might follow the commercial winds.
"I’m an art whore. If it can make money, I’ll do it," he joked.
Although Burde was initially too attached to his artwork to sell it, after some pressure from a fellow artist, he found it to be a viable income. In his 20s, Burde sold abstract paintings for $2,500 to $4,000 dollars each, he said. Burde tried to instill the financial lesson in graduating art students at BHS, he added.
What makes his art unique?
"Downscapes," Burde said, using a noun he invented. In downscape pieces, Burde creates images of landscapes as seen from above. He uses computer-map-based technologies, such as Google Earth, to see places he knows from a higher altitude, adding his first-hand experience of those places to the final artistic product.
Humble beginnings
Burde credits his formative artistic knack to a television show of his childhood, entitled "Learn to Draw." Therein, host and self-taught artist Jon Gnagy offered 15-minute drawing lessons, teaching viewers to create images using shortcuts. One shortcut involved drawing people’s arms as columns at their sides, with a circle at the bottom of each arm. Within that circle, Gnagy would draw four loops representing fingers, Burde explained.
"So that’s how I drew my people," Burde said. "In third grade, the school psychologist told my mom, ‘Look how he draws the hands on his people, always at their sides in a fist. He shows aggression.’"
Burde was subsequently forced to undergo a battery of psychological testing. Eventually, he memorized the "right answers" to clinical questions and the school psychologist declared him normal, he said.
The incident has not made Burde think any less of Gnagy, who he declares one of his heroes. He created a Jon Gnagy fan-page on Facebook to prove it.
As a child, Burde’s artistic talent was also fostered by "Winky Dink and You"— a cartoon wherein the scene would freeze and children could draw missing plot elements right on their television screens, he said.
"You’d get the Winky Dink coloring set by sending in a box top and a quarter. It was a plastic stick-on sheet to protect the television screen, and a Winky Dink cloth, which was basically a Kleenex, to wipe away the crayon," Burde explained. "I never sent away for the set. I just drew right on the TV."
Burde also pointed to a childhood incident in School No. 5 as important to his development— although it did not bear an influence on his artistic skill, but on his psyche.
While Burde served detention at School No. 5 one day, his teacher had to leave to attend a meeting. She subsequently instructed Burde to stay in detention until 3:45 and then leave. Burde, however, fell asleep at his desk and awoke at 7 p.m. The school building was empty, and locked, and he panicked. Burde ran to the main office screaming, and tossed a telephone through an office window, he said.
"I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t explain why: but it was the scariest thing for a kid," Burde added.
Come middle school, Burde said he was "socially maladjusted.
"I was a head taller than everyone else, and always overweight, so I got picked on a lot," he explained. "And I was antisocial. I think it was from being locked in the school," he joked.
That all started to change in his freshman year at BHS, when Burde met who would become another one of his heroes: art teacher Angelo Christiano.
"He was kind… he taught me that any amount of kindness you show a kid, they’ll remember forever. I was a wise-ass and he was kind to me," Burde said.
The two formed a strong teacher-student bond, and with that, Burde was inspired to become an art teacher.
He transferred from BHS to Newark’s School of Fine and Industrial Art, from where he graduated. The school closed its doors years ago due to financial hardship.
"If I ever hit the Mega Ball, I want to bring back that school," Burde said. "So many great American artists went through there. Diplomas are just paper. The knowledge you pick up at a school like that is priceless."
After receiving his MFA at Montclair State University, Burde eagerly returned to Belleville as an art teacher, first in the elementary schools, and later in BHS— where he worked alongside Christiano for about seven years.
"We’d practice sword fighting in the classroom until the ‘no weapons’ policy was written after Columbine," Burde said, citing his and Christiano’s love for Zorro. "If you’re having fun, students will learn all the more quickly… the Guidance Department used to send us all the troubled kids because they knew we could handle them… All you have to do is encourage people."
"…There are maybe three dozen kids out of 1,500 at the high school that I won’t miss," Burde joked. "The kids: that’s what education is all about. I’ll miss them."
Burde has taught over 15,000 Belleville students, he said, citing how he taught most of those students in the 19 years he juggled art classes at five of Belleville’s elementary school simultaneously.
And although Burde knows about how many students he’s taught, he has no idea how many paintings he’s completed over the years.
"I’ve sold or given many away, and once it’s gone, it’s out of my mind," Burde said. "I run into people who say they have one of my paintings from 30 years ago, and I don’t remember which painting they’re referring to."
Burde’s dream?
To pay off his Belleville home, build a studio at his shore house, and "just paint," he responded.
For more information about the artist and his work, visit www.krburde.com.
Email: Karidis@northjersey.com
BellevillePatch Arts
Painter Draws Inspiration Close to Home, and "Down the Shore"
Belleville resident artist has left his mark all over town
By Rose Sartaguda December 16, 2010
Kenneth Burde has been painting ever since he can remember. His mother used to keep his earlier drawings, which he says weren't very good at the time. Then he became a follower of Jon Gnagy's Learn to Draw TV program on Saturday mornings and started learning proper techniques. "I use the same method to teach my college students," says Burde.
He is an adjunct professor of fine arts at Essex County College, but has taught at Belleville elementary schools for nineteen years, and for the last fourteen years has been teaching art classes at Belleville High School.
"What really got me into painting was my ninth-grade art teacher, Mr. Christiano. I admired him so much I said that's who I want to be when I grow up," enthuses Burde. "He inspired me the most. Until he retired, we used to team-teach, and just enjoy it every day. We're still very good friends."
Burde studied at The Art Students League and Parsons New School of Design, both in New York City. He is a graduate of the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, which he speaks highly of, and holds graduate and post-graduate Degrees from New Jersey City University and Montclair State University, in fine arts and education.
His website showcases his works, which include landscapes, downscapes, people and wildlife, still life and interiors, drawings and what he calls "down the Shore"-- as people in northern New Jersey refer to the beach.
His landscapes are renditions of sceneries in Belleville, the neighboring towns and just about anywhere the muse strikes him. Downscapes, on the other hand, are aerial perspectives of certain locations (like a bird's-eye view or satellite images of coastal areas). These creative downscapes usually make it to juried shows, much to Burde's surprise. For the portraits, he makes it a point to know each person so the painting will reflect his or her character.
Burde's down the Shore collection include paintings of docks, boats, sailboats and shorelines, inspired by views of Barnegat Bay from his own porch. He and his wife bought a bungalow by the bay, which serves as his quiet retreat. "That's how I get away from the dogs, the cats, everything. It's always very sunny down there. I just sit on the front porch and start painting. I like to paint mostly down the shore. It's just an enjoyable thing to do," he adds.
Burde was joined recently by another artist, John Richter, also a former Belleville resident, in a show entitled "Oil and Water Do Mix" at the Bernardsville Public Library in Bernardsville. The show, held in August, featured oil paintings by Richter and watercolor paintings by Burde.
The artist also has several works in public display all over town. He painted the "Flag Drop Box" in front of Belleville Town Hall, the "Belleville Buccaneer" at Belleville Municipal Stadium, and the "Millenium Doors" of the Christ Episcopal Church.
One of his most memorable public works, however, was an airbrushed mural at Belleville High School. According to Burde, the mural was inspired by the 9/11 events. "After not being able to join a friend in the recovery operations in New York, I wasn't able to sleep. I thought of the kids in school with their different cliques, and
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