Self-taught artist Ron Burman makes bright, figurative paintings and drawings executed on canvas and found materials such as architect’s renderings, cardboard, and wood. His inspirations range from his aunt Joan—who made Pop art in her basement during the 1960s—to Jean Dubuffet, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso, to the Brazilian artist Héctor Julio Páride Bernabó (better known as Carybé), to Jean-Michel Basquiat. His work, like the work of Carybé and Basquiat, is a combination of raw and cooked: the style is exuberant and unmediated, while the colors and compositions have an unexpected elegance and graphic punch. Informal but not self-consciously primitive, Burman’s art is bold, unpretentious, and honest.

Burman was born in Philadelphia in 1965 and raised in Philadelphia and Jacksonville, Florida. After earning a BA from Florida State University in Tallahassee, he moved to New York City in 1987. His work has been included in exhibitions at Marcia Weber Art, Montgomery, Alabama; Gallery Art 54, New York; and Yard Dog Gallery, Austin, Texas. Burman is included in the source book Self-Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art: A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources by Betty-Carol Sellen with Cynthia J. Johnson (McFarland & Company, 2000). He lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.

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(Biographical information courtesy of Ron Burman, www.ronburman.com)