AJ Burns was born in Cape Town to Scottish parents and has
always had strong ties to his ancestry and a love of Africa.
As a child he drew and painted prodigiously. He was no
angel however and would caddishly remove the paper labels (that included the
name of the colour) from his colour-blind younger brother’s wax crayons. He now
claims he was just helping him with “his tonal values… and a little abstraction”!
At high school he was more than “encouraged to drop art for
proper subjects”, like math and physics. As a result, he studied Civil
Engineering at UCT and was required to use a sharp pencil, set square and ruler
– rather than the freedom of liquid paint on a canvas.
It took a chance meeting with an old friend 25 years later,
a garage with no electricity and a couple of old canvases to experiment on, for
AJ’s creative spark to be re-ignited. The constraints and solution seeking
requirements of being an engineer had at long last been cast aside and the
artist was once again allowed to blossom. The result is something unique.
AJ blows acrylic paint on large canvases - with his mouth! No
paintbrushes! He just uses his mouth to blow one colour of paint through another
to create vibrant movement and the distortion of form below the water surface.
The effect is a burst of energy, colour and texture.
The subjects and compositions are inspired by the pristine
water environments that AJ has had the privilege of travelling to, and his
contribution to conserving them.
His paintings are now following him around the world and
have found homes in South Africa, US, UK, Spain, Italy and Germany. He is
currently represented in 12 selected galleries and has enjoyed success in multiple
exhibitions.
