KATHARINE MULHERIN CONTEMPORARY ART PROJECTS

Exhibitions

- Current

   Kris Knight
   Madame Deficit

Pearl Van Geest
   Eat Me

   Dominika Dratwa
   Recent Work

   Tyler Clark Burke
   Shimera

- Upcoming

- Past

Tyler Clark Burke

Reviews
- 2006 V is for vulture (or not)

Artist's Statement - Shimera

"I have developed a nostalgia for "nostalgia"--in particular the manufacturing of memories both true and false. I have recently been taken by the 3-D laser cut glass cubes often found in stores on Spadina or in gift shops like those at the airport.

Historically, these cubes attempt to accurately capture objects, people or monuments, yet these "real" mementos always become subtly or even overtly fantastical by both their nature and presentation. I particularly love one that I often find: the CN Tower and Skydome with a helicopter hovering too near above, as if it is peering in the window of the 80th floor.

These miniature cubes have become the perfect avenue for my death obsession. I love the idea of fleeting energy locked into glass--blocks which capture phantasms forever. Their glass is my brain, with laser beams melting and displacing molecules to leave little scars as memories of heat.

"I have also embraced technology to translate my drawings into a 3-dimensional and digital world. I am excited by an interaction between my stories and those 3-D modeled objects which habitually occupy these cubes. As such, there are "real" humans transfiguring
into "real" bears, bears which in turn kill people to liberate their spirits. True to a notion of chimera, these characters are grafted together by science, while also existing in a narrative of she-monsters and fantastical illusions."
-Tyler Clark Burke

Biography

Tyler Clark Burke was born under seven tornadoes in Lexington, Kentucky. She left before she learned an accent, though the racetrack and bourbon never left her blood. Her parents later moved to Winnipeg, immediately forming a community group to sue a menacing church. They had meetings and threw big parties and made t-shirts which read "God is not dead, he's just stuck in traffic". Tyler wore these shirts to elementary school, and also at home when she was drawing strange clowns for Fellini.

Her first show--at least ten years later--was in the back of a bar with pictures clothes-pinned to strings over two dirty pool tables. She "sold" her first pieces that night to two strangers who had wandered in from the cold--one was Mary Margaret O'Hara, the other Bob Wiseman. When it came time to deliver--and Tyler hated to follow-up--Mary Margaret didn't answer her phone, and she just couldn't take money from Bob (years later she handed him the painting in an envelope and ran away).

Things somehow got better. She started a record label (internationally acclaimed Three Gut Records), was the Art Director for Wavelength, won strange design awards, started a music-art-dance party called Santa Cruz and contributed illustrations regularly (and still does) to the likes of The Walrus, Dose and Eye Weekly. When Googled, you'll also find that she sometimes writes, she's had a string of unusual bike accidents, she collaborates with Feist, she's toured the U.S. on a reading/performance art tour, she lived in a slanty shanty, she casts videos (k-os and Buck 65 most recently), illustrates t-shirts/books (Sarah Harmer, Feist, Darren O'Donnell, The Constantines) and she shot the notorious Peaches' crotch shot album
cover.

Her work has been shown at Awol, Sis Boom Bah, Luft Gallery, The Drake Hotel (6-week artist-in-residence), Katharine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects (salon at 1080 Queen St. W.) and Magic Pony.

Her art has been favourably reviewed or featured in The Toronto Star, Lola, Eye Weekly, Now Magazine, Metro (San Francisco), SF Weekly, Vancouver Straight, The National Post and on the CBC and Bravo.

Most famously, she once said "things come together the more they fall apart".