Burke, an amiable, community-minded individual, answers his own challenge: “For me, painting the human face is like crawling through the flesh and bone of those I transpose onto the canvas.”
Burke is quick to add that he does not paint to “make a person look beautiful” but to make a beautiful painting of a person.
He further explains the passion for portraits: “I’ve found no other form of art that grips me so, makes such fierce demands on my evolving skill. I’ve painted a lot of horrible portraits that ended up in the brush pile. But if I paint a good portrait, there’s no doubt about it.”
In preparation for painting, Burke likes to spend a lot of time “absorbing” each subject. He takes up to a hundred or so photographs using a variety of lighting and background colors. Photo shoots sometimes include a change of costume or the addition of objects that suggest something about the person’s life. “I work from my own photographs, letting instinct lead me to the concept for the painting,” says Burke of this process.
Brenda and Bill Clark have a Burke portrait of Arnold Clark, Bill’s father, in their Isle au Haut home. Brenda observes, “Jeff takes a picture, does a few sketches, then goes to work. It’s just amazing that he could capture my father-in-law’s essence. The talent that he has is incredible!” The painting of Arnold Clark is a focal-point in their home, one that is all the more meaningful since Arnold passed away recently. Bill adds that friends and family “couldn’t get over how much it was him” while the painting was on display at his father’s service.
Burke first became interested in portraits as a way to capture the character and individuals that found their way to his inn. Having always gravitated toward small communities (the Burkes once lived in a tiny village on a mountain top in Venezuela when they were Peace Corp volunteers), Burke and his wife Judi bought what he describes as an “old abandoned lighthouse station” in 1986. They then set to work renovating it, subsequently opening a seasonal inn that brought approximately 16,000 people to the island over the next 23 years. Jeff and Judi Burke retired from inn-keeping in 2008, putting the historic buildings up for sale and moving to Arizona four to six months of the year, where he also paints. The Burkes return to the island every spring.
“Painting portraits has helped me realize the precious value of every member of the community,” adds Burke of the communities in which he lives and works, each place described as an “island” whether or not they are surrounded by water.
“As an artist always looking for the beauty in things, I hope to be able to see beyond the warts and extra pounds, beyond the differences of opinion, the petty personality conflicts, and voila, there bathed in the clear island light we might be teased by some universal visage of beauty and understanding.”
A gallery of Jeffrey Burke’s artwork can be viewed at www.jeffreyburkeportraits.com
Kate Taylor is a freelance writer living on North Haven.