Bill Burns

×

Expand

Bill Burns, “The Great Donkey Walk, Amden, Switzerland,” 2018 (courtesy Atelier Amden and the artist)

Bill Burns’ latest exhibition in Regina feels like a folk song. The materials he uses are simple, the installation methods unpretentious and the subject matter meandering yet universal. Once again, his work toes the line between cheekiness and aching sincerity.

The show, which carries an ambling title, The Salt, the Milk, the Donkey, the Honey, the Folk Singers, is on view at the Dunlop Art Gallery’s Sherwood branch until June 26. It demonstrates Burns’ interest in commodities at once ancient and contemporary that traverse the globe via complex trade networks. 

×

Expand

Bill Burns, “Letterpress Posters,” 2020

43” x 29” each, open edition (photo by Don Hall, courtesy the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina)

Burns has previously cited his Saskatchewan roots for drawing him to bucolic artistic themes – he grew up watching local animal life, repairing farm equipment, making beeswax candles and spending time on the river. For his 15th birthday, his mom gave him his first set of Winsor & Newton watercolours. Among his early subjects were birds, first drawn from life, and then more accurately captured from guidebooks. 

As a professional artist, Burns has made beautiful watercolour and pencil drawings that he refers to as “documents” or “pre-documents,” depending on their subject matter. Some drawings allude to his dealings with curators and art galleries, but many do not wander far from his original inspiration and resemble stylized manuals on animals, boats or some combination of similar topics. For example, in this show, one illustration compares different cargo ships to various breeds of donkeys. 

×

Expand

Bill Burns, “Untitled,” 2018-2020

watercolour and pencil on paper, 11” x 9” (photo by Don Hall, courtesy Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina)

Another recent watercolour is captioned: “The chair of the board was upset that the goat’s milk had not been pasteurized. Another director was convinced the goats and donkeys have no place at an art museum …” Burns has a penchant for poking fun at art-world elitism, whether or not you think human and animal collaborations belong in galleries. The caption continues: “There were the expected insinuations about animal cruelty and also about what is appropriate behaviour for artists or farm animals” – the behaviour of both apparently up for debate. 

Burns’ explorations of the movement of trade goods in relation to animal helpers led him to explore performance art as a means of enacting exchange on a local scale. In 2018, a long-duration performance saw two donkeys help him move kilos of salt up a Swiss mountainside to an apple orchard where he traded it for apples, and those apples, in turn, for honey. 

×

Expand

Bill Burns, “The Salt, the Milk, the Donkey, the Honey, the Folk Singers,” 2022

installation view at the Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina (Photo: Don Hall, courtesy the Dunlop Art Gallery)

Burns, who has exhibited at prominent international institutions, said in a conversation with curator Tomas Jonsson that part of his project is connecting with local farmers in the places he exhibits. So, on July 2 he will facilitate a processional collaborative trading performance with local donkeys, goats, musicians and other participants at Regina’s farmers’ market. 

If his project ever morphs into a large-scale activation, Burns says he would like to move a cargo of salt internationally. Such an artistic negotiation of global trading systems would be a clever nod to the existence and movement of another age-old commodity – art. ■

Bill Burns: The Salt, the Milk, the Donkey, the Honey, the Folk Singers at the Dunlop Art Gallery in Regina from April 9 to June 26, 2022.

PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.