Aaron Burleson
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Aaron Burleson is a painter based in Columbus, Ohio. His work uses figuration to reflect on the mythos of contemporary life, both personal and collective. Americana, sexuality, and spirituality emerge as ongoing points of investigation in his large-scale figurative paintings, digital imaging and design, video editing, and sculptural installation.
Burleson received a BFA from The Ohio State University in 2021, and is active in the Columbus art scene, having shown in spaces such as the Columbus Museum of Art, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, and the Urban Arts Space.
Touchdown Jesus
Opening Friday, April 17, 5-8pm
On view through May 31
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
40×66 inches
“This was my most challenging work to create, and a departure from the figuration I’ve attempted before. The concept was to create an accurate map of Columbus, using a range of resources like Google Earth, zoning maps, and satellite imagery, over the course of one year. Here, the city is presented as a sort of mystical net cast upon the landscape, with only a few concrete buildings rendered in the foreground. People do not take precedence here - only local fauna as angelic overseers populate the land.” - Aaron Burelson
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
26×40 inches
“This is a syncretic image of two Western warrior images - that of Saint George, the famous Roman soldier who freed a village and maiden from a demanding dragon, and Odin, the patriarchal sky god of Norse mythology. Both classic images are melded into one mythic image of a man defeating evil, complete with Odin’s eight-legged steed, Sleipnir. This painting was primarily motivated by wanting to free myself of contemporary subject matter and pursue the image with an almost cartoonish approach.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burelson
acrylic on canvas
16×32 inches
“An exercise in sincere Romantic imagery, calling upon the classic trope of Venus emerging from the waves. Here the goddess and typical water nymphs are replaced by average men, attended by various animals associated with love and hunting. Their parade becomes a fantastical, totemic image of homoerotic youth and autogenesis.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
23×46 inches
“This is a literal visual interpretation of the Beast from the Sea from the biblical Book of Revelations, as well as the attending Beast from the Earth, who promotes the authority of the Sea Beast. The Earth Beast is pictured in the bottom right corner, pointing the viewer from the cave back to the primary figure of the painting. The painting was inspired by my Catholic upbringing, the textural characteristics of AI imagery, and the nature of human extermination campaigns enabled by modern warfare technology.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burelson
acrylic on canvas
16×32 inches
“This was a study of the classic image of Hercules defeating the Nemean Lion, captured also by artists like Rubens and Zurbarán. The first of Hercules’ Twelve Labours, this required the strangulation of a mythic lion whose fur was made of impenetrable gold. Here the battle is rendered slightly less fantastical as previous versions - it is the basic mythic image of a man wrestling with an average, almost tearful-looking lion.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burelson
acrylic on canvas
7×14 inches
“A common sight past midnight outside of AWOL in Olde Towne East during the summer. I wanted to shift the perspective to something real and grounded in my experience of the city, even if only for a quick observational study. The men’s arms are elongated and made partially limp to mimic gibbons.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
20×34 inches
“Another practice in recreating a digitally-sourced image and treating its formal aspects, this time using imagery that felt chilling and mocking to the viewer. This is a portrait of collaborators with Jeffrey Epstein, photographed on his infamous island in 2003. It was made in 2021, in the wake of Jeffrey’s alleged suicide.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burelson
acrylic on canvas
19×30 inches
“A formal figure study using an image that circulated on Tumblr when I was using that platform the most as a teenager. In that way it is a technical exercise, an ode to one of my favorite musical artists, and an homage to the digital scene that inspired me in my youth.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
8×14 inches
“My rendition of a popular canonical subject - that of Ganymede, a youth abducted by the god Zeus in disguise as an eagle, taken into the heavens to be Zeus’ cupbearer. At a sort of subconscious level, it felt like an appropriate image for our contemporary era, with Epstein’s crimes, Maduro’s abduction by US military forces, and more broadly, human trafficking, being at the forefront of our sociopolitical consciousness. In previous classical depictions, artistic focus is given to the young man’s body contorting in the air - here, Ganymede is presented as a limp, almost life-less body at the whim of the flying beast. “ - Aaron Burelson
By Aaron Burleson
Acrylic on canvas
18” x 24”
“An imagined “still life” composed of pinfish, often used as bait fish in saltwater regions. I had wanted to work on this image since going on a deep-sea fishing expedition with my grandfather at the age of 16. In between casting my line, I would stare down and study the doomed creatures used to eventually doom other creatures.” - Aaron Burleson
By Aaron Burleson
Acrylic on canvas
26” x 40”
“I often find myself at the onset of a painting wanting to break formal standards and use flat coloring to illustrate a scene in a more crude way. However, at one point or another, my mind gets in its own way and more detailed rendering comes into play. Somehow, in this work I was able to restrain the impulse for naturalism and allow a more expressive composition to come through. This painting is both a serious dedication to the generations of martyred homosexuals before me, and a darkly humorous reminder to my contemporary community of the occasionally-forgotten social position reserved for sexual deviants.” - Aaron Burleson
by Aaron Burleson
acrylic on canvas
20×40 inches
“The Notdeer is a creature born out of online storytelling, on forums like TikTok and Creepypasta, and falsely attributed to native folklore. Taking inspiration from stories like that of the skinwalker, it is a creature that appears at first as a deer, but has unnatural qualities like deformed limbs or upright walking, depending on the storyteller. The Notdeer is a phenomena completely detached from broader history or unified understanding, yet it became a staple of contemporary Appalachian horror. A previous coworker of mine claimed to have seen it during a roadtrip. This basically nonexistent relationship to reality felt like furtile ground for a painting. Here, I obscure the creature with twisting layers of trees and foliage, further abstracted by a flash of light from an unknown source.” - Aaron Burleson
By Aaron Burleson
Acrylic on canvas
25” x 50”
“This project began as a desire to paint a historical painting in the tradition of the Neoclassicists, with their restrained but grandiose drama. Inspired by Gregory Maguire’s Wicked novel, this work takes the American folk-mythology of Oz and stages it into a revisionist historical scene. In this part of the novel, the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, sends her companion dog to welcome the famous quartet of travelers to her castle, but is instead met with aggressive fear and ensuing violence. The original Frank L. Baum story also includes a slaughter of the Witch’s companion dogs.” - Aaron Burleson
