Steve Burden
Growing up in an urban jungle, surrounded by out-of-scale concrete fortresses, has inevitably informed my development and visual aesthetic as an artist. Inspired by my own experiences growing up on the Pepys Estate in Deptford, south London, my paintings investigate dystopian themes and ideas associated with British housing estates. I’m interested in exploring the social issues that arose from the creation of this estate – security, isolation, control and gang culture – as well as its design and architecture, and the history of the site.
Pepys Estate’s past, as well as my own experiences, has fed into my paintings. From medieval times the site of the estate was an important dockland development with several wharves, a large cattle market and associated abattoir. My painting Abattoir began with a 1913 photograph taken in the abattoir and obtained from the Pepys Archive in nearby Lewisham Library. I wanted to reconnect with these long-gone figures in black and white, and examine their personas – one of the reasons I chose to place myself in the painting – to understand better the gangs of men that once worked there, while introducing the street-gang members that the estate had become known for in later years.
In terms of construction, layering has become an important aspect of my work, both in the building up of layer upon layer and erasure, and also as a means to build multiple readings and a more complex narrative into the paintings. My process can involve dissolving a day’s painting so that the surface becomes like a palimpsest of time, and I also paint over areas, obliterating them and taking them back to the background colour. The issues of population growth and associated density are ones that continue to increase and cause tension, with no sign of a slow-down or solution. The ‘sink estates’ are gradually being demolished, an expensive failed experiment. But what is going to replace them?
Join Axis
We support artists
Funding, visibility, connection and practical help.
Membership includes £15 million of Public Liability Insurance!