about riverwork

riverwork.studio represents the personal practice of russell burden. amongst other engagements he is currently artist in residence for the lossenham project, creating responses to a wetland landscape in the high weald of kent - the lossenham project

riverwork explores the relationships between scientific phenomena, artistic expression and existential sensibility -  the enquiry delivered through a wide spread of media - writing, photography, sound, film, painting, sculpture, installation, digital process and object collection.

a work space in flux

riverwork.studio might be best viewed as a depository of ideas, a site that documents artwork, collected materials and observations. the site was primarily designed as an active journal or sketchbook, a sense-making activity to help reveal entanglements and qualities of juxtaposition within the enquiry. unlike an archive of specific projects or a promotional portfolio, the work on the site is subject to regular alterations as the practice evolves.

for a selected chronology behind the practice - wayfaring
for various small commissions - invites and commissions
for some examples of photographic work - image making

philosophy

riverwork is a form of personal journey, an enquiry never complete. for the artist it maps both deliberated and serendipitous moments, seeking to explore the unexpected throughout its progress. at the core of riverwork is a search for spaciousness, for the endless moment unfolding and being watchful of objects as they arise, their qualities mattering. in its exploration the practice engages with a range of contemporary thought: object oriented ontology, deep time awareness, mineral evolution, assemblage theory and material engagement theory, opening non-hierarchical and non-binary ways of seeing.

often centred on the hydrologic and geologic language of the material world, the practice uses matterphorical ways of seeing, exploring the biotic and abiotic alike as expressions of one vibrant materiality, natural phenomena experienced from a goethean standpoint, inviting the objectivity of science to integrate with the artistic imagination; the human instrument gazing through the surface fabric of things to apprehend more spacious, luminous fields of meaning.

paul nash, in the landscape of 1933, phrased the chemistry of his personal search thus... ‘last summer i walked in a field near avebury where two monoliths stand up sixteen feet high, miraculously patterned with black and orange lichen, remnants of an avenue of stones which led to the great circle. a mile away, a green pyramid casts a gigantic shadow. in the hedge, at hand, the white trumpet of a convolvulus turns from its spiral stem, following the sun. in my art i would solve such an equation’ (ref: herbert read, 1934).

riverwork's delivery

mutable content
as both enquiry and outcome are left open to cross boundaries and integrate, the content of a section may evolve, gathering together data and media from various locations, years and fields of thought.

viewing the work
although device responsive, this site is best viewed on a desktop monitor for both image detail and the layout of written work.

lowercase type
the adoption of bauhaus member herbert bayer’s unicase orthography in this practice aims to promote an open field of type that streams thought without imposed formalities. this loosening facilitates a sense of self-similarity throughout the work, easing notions of hierarchy and scale.
postulated by bayer in his 1925 proposal for a universal typeface: 'why should we write and print in two alphabets? both a large sign and a small sign are not necessary to identify a single sound. we do not speak in a capital 'a' and a small 'a'. a single alphabet gives us practically the same result as the mixture of upper and lower case letters...' (herbert bayer - bauhaus, 1919 - 1928, p.147).

punctuation
much of the poetic writing within the practice is purposefully composed to avoid punctuation. the compartmentalising of thought via the use of prescriptive visual signs is both useful to a work's intended meaning whilst, at the same time, limiting to the development of softer boundaries that aim to transmit a sense of the unresolved. this absence of sign, in addition to the use of 'lowercase only' type, further opens creative pieces to be experienced visually, the aesthetic form often being part of the intended delivery.

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© (1974-2022) all rights reserved

all written content, imagery, sound, film and design, (including website design) is the copyright of russell burden unless presented to be the work of a collaborating artist, or a literary citation with bibliographic reference.

info[at]riverwork.studio