It’s the Season of the Bear. The same named series about an Italian Beef Sandwich shop in Chicago and the Iranian movie No Bears are both steeped in interaction among families and neighborhoods, portraying joys and perils that we impose on ourselves—or are forced upon us. With engaging, and yes, entertaining detail and storyline, visual art engages and scores an immediate impression. This is what Robert Xavier Burden is able to accomplish in his paintings of the flora and fauna that nourish our natural world, not painstakingly, but joyfully and carefully crafted to draw in the viewer. Charles the silverback gorilla of the Toronto zoo sits surrounded by ape toys like King Kong and Space Chimps. A Russian fox from the JAB Canid Education and Conservation Center was the model for another oil on canvas, bordered by an illuminated bible motif filled with vulpines like Vulptex and FoxMcCloud.
Now the Oceanside Museum of Art in Southern California hosts Burden’s solo exhibition, featuring the Bear and friends like Paddington and Winnie the Pooh. More than 25 paintings, like Battle for the Arctic, charm with detail, specificity, and color, then engross us in a conversation about animal rights, climate change, and what is or should be the natural order of this shared universe. In addition, the artist will be live-painting the twelve-by-eight-foot Alien Painting for the duration of his show Robert Xavier Burden: Relics. —Gwynned Vitello
